More than skin deep
by K.C.Dragonfly
Summary: When Grissom takes some time off, leaving Catherine in charge, she suddenly finds herself with more to contend with than just Nick's insubordination ... eventual Cara, some dark themes. Set between season 3 and 4
1. Chapter 1

**Hello all! I know that I have been away for a very long time, but recently I've been re-bitten by the writing bug. I also know that I have a half-finished story on my account and I will hopefully get that one finished, but I need to get myself back into writing first before I dive back into that one.**

 **So, new story :) As always, this is just the taster chapter, others will be longer.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own CSI. If I did, I wouldn't be driving a Fiat.**

x X x

Sara never changed in front of the others.

They presumed that she must change clothes at some point during her shifts, but they never saw her do it. The boys were completely unashamed when it came to stripping off in the locker room, and even Catherine was willing to change into a clean shirt in their presence, but not Sara. Never Sara.

It wasn't something any of them had ever given much thought to.

x X x

If Catherine had to describe Sara in one word, it would be a difficult choice: stubborn, obsessive, closed, stoic.

Vulnerable? Not so much. But then, Catherine had never paid her that much attention.

When Sara first arrived in Las Vegas, around three years earlier, Catherine was instinctively angry with her – unjustifiably so, perhaps. Sara was there to investigate Holly's death, which was a polite way of saying that she was there to investigate Warrick.

She had found Warrick to be culpable in Holly's death. Grissom kept him on anyway, but he kept Sara too. And immediately, a rivalry was born – not between Sara and Warrick though; between Sara and Catherine.

The funny thing was that Catherine liked Sara. In fact, she liked her right off the bat. Sara had a wry sense of humour and sassy attitude about her. But she didn't _want_ to like this newcomer and she certainly didn't want Sara to know how she really felt, so she put up a wall between them and masked her true feelings behind curt insults and a snappy tone. She paid Sara little, if any, interest and pretended not to see the small flashes of confused hurt when one of her little digs struck a nerve.

Eventually, once Sara had proved herself to be a valuable and trusted member of the team – accepted even by Warrick – there became less reason for her to keep her wall in place. But Catherine Willows was a proud woman, and not one to easily admit when she was wrong. Somehow, it seemed too hard to suddenly change tack and welcome Sara into the fold, as much as she may want to. So the wall stayed up and, while the snarky comments dried up, their relationship remained mild at best.

They worked well together, of course. In fact, under the right circumstances, they made one hell of a fierce team. But that was work. And as far as Catherine was concerned, that was all it was going to be.

There was a brief thawing in their work-based relationship, when Catherine extended the offer of a post-work drink after Sara discovered her paramedic boyfriend Hank had been cheating on her. Sara hadn't said much; in fact, she hadn't really said anything, preferring to stare quietly into her beer. But, despite the uniqueness of the situation, it wasn't awkward. However, when Catherine suggested grabbing some breakfast together the following week, Sara declined, seemingly perplexed by the friendly offer. And so Catherine left it at that, and normal service was quickly resumed.

Rarely, they were friends. Occasionally they were rivals. Mostly, they were colleagues.


	2. Chapter 2

Catherine could count on one hand the number of times that Grissom had voluntarily taken more than a day off at a time over the course of their working relationship.

Then again, this instance wasn't exactly _voluntary_ either. He had finally bitten the bullet and agreed to have an operation to fix his hearing, only to come round to an incessant buzzing in his ears. The doctors reassured him that the procedure had been a complete success and the noise would stop eventually, but not soon enough for him to return to work straight away.

So, with more than a little reluctance, he had agreed to take a few weeks off and let his hearing fully recover. It had taken some convincing, but he knew that Catherine would be there and he had complete faith in her ability to take care of things.

He wasn't necessarily happy about it, but his team was in safe hands. That much, he was confident in.

x X x

Catherine let out a disgruntled sigh as she surveyed Grissom's wreck of a desk and for the first time began to regret taking on this thankless task. Perched perilously atop the pile of unsorted paperwork sat a neat stack of manila folders, which she assumed to be tonight's assignments.

Although she was already in a bad mood this evening, which was only exacerbated by Grissom's disorganisation, she didn't actually mind doling out cases to the team – if nothing else, it meant that she got to cherry pick which one she wanted and who she wanted to work with. There was nothing too exciting tonight, but after a quick glance through them it didn't take long for her to select the cream of the crop.

Scooping the pile into her arms, she stropped down the hall to the break room, where the rest of the team were lounging, awaiting their tasks for the evening ahead.

"Okay, Sara – 419 in Henderson. Looks like a domestic." She announced without preamble. Her entrance had brought all three team members to their feet and Sara obediently stepped forward to accept her assignment without contest.

"Nick, stolen car found abandoned in a parking lot."

"How come you're doing assignments tonight?" The Texan enquired with a slightly accusatory tone as he reached out to accept the file. "Where's Grissom?"

"He's taking a few weeks' vacation." She answered, electing not to elaborate for now. She knew that sooner or later word would get out; after all, she wasn't the only one who had noticed his rapidly declining hearing of late. But, for the time being, it was no-one else's business and she didn't have the time or patience to delve into his personal life just to appease Nick's curiosity.

"So, you're running the show for now?" Warrick nodded approvingly, sensing her reluctance to offer up any further explanation. Clearing her throat, she straightened up.

"Nick, when you've finished your case, you can help Sara with hers." She asserted, before turning her attention back to her partner for the night. "Warrick, you're with me."

Assignments dispersed, and keen to escape before they could ask any further questions, she spun on her heel and stalked out.

Nick whirled on Sara, a look of irritation crossing his face.

"How come you get the dead body and I get stuck taking prints off a stolen car all night?"

Sara looked up from the first responder's notes she was perusing and shrugged, fighting to keep a little smile off her face. She wouldn't have wanted Nick's case either, and he knew it.

Getting no useable response from her, Nick turned to Warrick for support. Far from backing him up, however, his mate rolled his eyes.

"Don't bitch about it, man." Warrick snapped impatiently. "Catherine doesn't need the agro tonight. Anyway, you're always whining about not getting to work solo."

The reminder did little to appease the young CSI, who was left to huff insolently in his departing colleagues' wake.

x X x

"Hey,"

Catherine glanced up from lacing her boots and turned to the source of the soft greeting.

"Hey, I just need to grab my kit, I'll meet you at the car in five." She stated, standing up and slipping her jacket over her shoulders.

"Sure thing." Warrrick nodded. "Just as a heads up – Nick's pretty pissed at you."

She frowned, shaking her blonde waves out from underneath her collar.

"Why?"

"Because you gave Sara the 419 and saddled him with a rookie case." He chuckled. Distinctly un-amused, Catherine rolled her shoulders tensely.

"Oh, I do not need this tonight." She groaned tiredly.

"Hey, don't worry about it." He sobered up and pushed himself off the doorframe, ambling towards her. "He's just being sullen, he'll calm down."

She smiled weakly, brushing the concerns to one side for now. If Nick had a problem with her assignments, he could bring it up with her himself or just suck it up. Knowing Nick, she could guess which option he'd take.

"So," Warrick continued after a moment, "he had the surgery, huh?"

Cath caught his eye and a soft laugh bubbled out of her.

"Yeah, eventually." She pursed her lips. "He's doing fine; he just needs a little time to fully recover."

"Good." He nodded approvingly, flashing a wide grin. "At least he knows the team's in good hands, right?"

She returned the gesture, slapping him on the arm lightly as she wandered past him towards the door.

"Five minutes." She said light-heartedly, already feeling her mood improve. "I'm driving."

x X x

Not for the first time since entering the crime scene, Sara felt her stomach lurch and wished that Catherine had given her Nick's crappy rookie case instead.

The smell of iron hung in the air like a thick fog and, despite what she tried to tell herself, the chill that kept running up her spine wasn't just because it was an unusually cold night.

But it was the little things that were really making her feel unsettled: the cracks in the vase, where it had obviously been broken and glued back together; the chip in the corner of the coffee table where someone had fallen – or been thrown – against it; the patches of wall that had been re-plastered and covered with paint that just didn't quite match.

The little things that no one ever noticed, until it was too late.

"Anything?" Jim's gruff voice startled her out of her morose thoughts and she sucked in a breath to hide her surprise at being caught off-guard.

"There's a lot of dried blood on the walls and furniture." She said, attempting to keep the emotion out of her voice. "Low and medium velocity spatter. It suggests he used his fists, rather than a weapon."

Jim flicked his eyes up from his notes towards the scientist's sombre face and opened his mouth to say something, before deciding against it. He had to admit that the case appeared fairly self-explanatory. Deceased male stabbed to death in the bedroom, with evidence of historic violence across the house; catatonic, blood-stained woman under arrest. It smacked of an abused wife who had finally snapped. Of course, Jim knew better than to make any conclusions until all the evidence had been gathered.

He also knew better than to cross Sara on a domestic violence case.

"I found the knife under the bed." She continued, interrupting his musings. "It matches the rest of the set in the kitchen. There's blood on the bed and the floor – it appears he was initially attacked in bed and fell onto the floor during the subsequent struggle."

Sara had felt tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes as she watched the scene playing out in her own head and looked away in an attempt to disguise the rush of emotions racing across her face. Unlike Jim, she didn't need to wait for the evidence to confirm her suspicions.

She had seen this show before.

x X x

Catherine stepped gingerly over the broken glass littering the threshold, followed cautiously by Warrick.

"Detective," she greeted. "What do we have?"

"A mess." The surly man sighed. He had been in the force for a while and Catherine recognised him from working scenes with him in the past. If memory served correct, he usually worked high profile drugs cases and he seemed perturbed at being assigned a measly burglary case.

He wasn't wrong though. Between the shattered glass and the shrapnel embedded in the walls and furniture, the bomb had clearly caused some damage. Whether it had been intended that way, or whether it had simply been used to gain entry and the damage was merely collateral, remained to be seen.

She knew from the briefing notes that the office belonged to a psychiatrist who offered private counselling, so naturally the obvious assumption was that this was the handiwork of a disgruntled client.

"Is anything missing?" She asked of the police officer, although she suspected that it would be hard to tell at this point.

"Not that we know of." He hitched up his pants and sniffed. "Obviously, we couldn't let the shrink in to do too much digging around until you guys arrived, but his laptop is still here and he said that he shreds the handwritten session notes once he's typed them up."

"So whoever did this probably wasn't after information on a client." Warrick mused. "That rules out one theory."

"Did he have any idea of who could be involved?" Catherine pressed. "Any clients – or ex-clients – who've caused him some problems lately? Any threats against him or his office?"

"Nothing came to mind straight away. He's going to get back to me if he thinks of anyone who might have had a grudge."

"Okay." Catherine hummed, envisaging a long night of dusting for prints ahead of her and suddenly wishing that she had kept Sara's 419 for herself after all. "Warrick, you start in here. I'll take his office."

It was going to be a slow shift. But at least they weren't in a chilly parking lot dusting a stolen car for fingerprints that probably wouldn't be in the system anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

"Dr Chambers," Catherine extended a hand and he shook it with a grateful nod.

"Thank you." He said, without elaborating as to exactly what he was thanking her for. "Have you found anything?"

"We're still gathering evidence," she answered, extracting her notepad from her pocket. "Do you have idea who might want to do this? Any disgruntled clients, anyone who you've recently stopped seeing professionally?"

"Not that I can think of, but I'd have to review my case notes." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. He was about her age and quite attractive – not really what she expected from a psychiatrist. She'd have certainly preferred to sit across from him during her marriage counselling with Eddie.

Then again, that might have hindered the process rather than helping it. Dr Lucille Rogers hadn't exactly saved her marriage, but at least Catherine had never fantasized about leaving her husband for her.

"What about in your personal life?" She pressed. "Anyone that might want to hurt you, who might take it out on your business?"

"No," he drawled slowly, obviously running through a list of people in his mind and crossing them off as he went. Ex-girlfriends, Catherine mused to herself. "No, I don't think so."

She pursed her lips, preparing to ask a daring question.

"We'd like to take a look at your client notes," she posed carefully. "Whoever did this obviously had access to explosives of some kind and it's possible they have more than one target in mind."

He understood where she was coming from. It was more than likely one of his clients had been responsible for putting a bomb through his letter box, but that didn't mean they were going to stop at his office. He'd hate to think that innocent people could be hurt because he'd declined to help the police with their investigation. Then again, he had a duty towards his clients' privacy.

She continued to stare at him as he mulled over the question for an achingly long minute. She knew what he was thinking – could he justify breaking doctor-patient confidentiality on what was still just a hunch?

"You could have the notes," he said at last, "if I redact them first. That way my clients would remain anonymous. If you found anything in them that was probative, then I could give you a name."

Catherine barely even considered the offer before agreeing. In all honesty, she hadn't expected him to be amenable to the suggestion at all.

x X x

"I mean, don't get me wrong – I appreciate Catherine letting me work solo." Nick continued between mouthfuls of coffee. "But stolen cars? I was working them in my first few weeks on the job, man. It's not fair."

Greg hummed absently.

"Don't you think?" Nick pushed when he didn't receive a response. The lab rat sighed, finally lifting his gaze from his microscope.

"I think I'm too busy to sooth your ego." He snapped impatiently. "Do you have something for me or not?"

Taken aback by the usually good-natured man's surly mood, Nick wordlessly handed him the bag of swabs.

"Blood from the steering wheel of the car. Let me know if you get anything from it." He said coolly, before turning on his heel and stalking out of the lab.

"See, wasn't that hard." Greg muttered to himself quietly, snatching up the bag from the desk and beginning to check the evidence in on the system.

He knew that he shouldn't take his bad temper out on his friends, but Nick's whining about his case was the last thing he needed after the day he'd had. His doctor had been running late, leaving him waiting two hours in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the corridor outside the burns unit. When he finally got seen, he was dealt the saddening blow that he was going to need at least another skin graft, possibly two, to heal the damage inflicted during the lab explosion.

It wasn't the news he had been hoping for. Between that and the fact that his hands still hadn't stopped shaking, he would argue that he was having a far worse day than Nick and his stolen car.

x X x

"Oh." Hodges said simply when Warrick spilled through his door with an armful of evidence bags.

"Hope you weren't planning on finishing early tonight." The dark-skinned CSI joked, dropping the bags haphazardly onto the table.

"You know, some people might see this as a challenge." David commented snippily, picking up the first one and pretending to examine it. "You know what I say to those people? Learn to _prioritise_."

Not particularly interested in indulging the prissy lab tech today, Warrick waved a hand towards his exhibits.

"Check everything for traces of explosives. Page me as soon as you get anything."

Hoping to escape the trace lab before Hodges could go on one of his trademark tirades, Warrick was disheartened to find his path blocked by Nick, who was stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.

"Explosives?" He queried. "You get an explosion and I get stuck with an abandoned Chevy?"

"Leave it out, man." Warrick moaned, brushing past him forcefully in the direction of the locker room. "I need a shower."

Nick watched him walk away, his annoyance at his crappy assignment growing. To his left, he felt Hodges creep into his peripheral vision and turned to find the man staring at him, a smug little sneer fighting its way onto his face.

"Catherine stuck you with the dud case, huh?" He asked without a hint of sympathy in his voice.

"Don't you have work to be doing?" Nick asked tersely.

"Hey, I get it." Hodges held up his hands. "I mean, it's not fair, right? Grissom's barely gone a day and Catherine's already running the roost. You know," he leant in conspiratorially, "the techs have a bet on that Grissom's last minute _'leave'_ is actually code for _fired_ ... and you know who's just waiting in the wings to take over."

"Grissom is coming back." Nick huffed, rolling his eyes.

"Sure, okay." Hodges hummed, not sounding remotely convinced. "But you gotta admit, Catherine hasn't wasted any time in making her mark..."

"Hodges..."

"Of course, I don't have to tell you that – after all, you're the one who spent all night in a urine-stained parking lot, taking worthless prints off a stolen car."

"Hodges," Nick echoed calmly, leaning into his personal space until the lab tech looked decidedly uncomfortable with their proximity. "Shut up."

x X x

When Catherine had asked for Dr Chambers' case files, it never occurred to her to ask just how many clients they were talking about.

Due to the way he documented his sessions, it had not taken much effort for him to anonymise his case files – he had simply printed the session notes minus the front sheet which held the patient's name and contact information. On the first page of each client's notes, he had scribbled their gender and current age, for some context. Throughout the notes themselves, he simply referred to the client by their first initial.

Upon handing these over, he tried to claim that this was a security measure put in place for exactly a situation such as this, although Catherine suspected that he was just too lazy to type out their name in full.

Either way, it meant that it had not taken as long as Catherine anticipated for him to have them ready, and by the time they finished with the crime scene, he had returned with over 40 folders ready for her analysis.

Those, he told her, were his _current_ clients. He would get the files for _former_ clients to her by the following evening.

Since Grissom wouldn't be needing it for a few days, Catherine had commandeered his office; although it didn't take her long to remember why she didn't like working in there. For one thing, there were no windows; but even more disconcerting was the fact that every time she looked up, she came face-to-face with something dead watching her from a jar.

It was like working in a serial killer's lair.

Having returned from the scene exhausted and covered in the dust which had been swirling around the room as a result of the explosion, she had left Warrick to distribute the evidence to the relevant lab techs, while she tried to rearrange Grissom's desk into a useable workspace.

She had just about finished and was preparing to sit down to her stack of patient files, when a gentle rap at the door brought her tired eyes up.

"Nick." She greeted with a friendly smile. "How'd you go with your case?"

"Yeah, fine ... I hear you and Warrick got an explosives case?"

"Yeah, well..." she exhaled. "We don't really know what we're looking at yet."

Not quite satisfied with the answer, Nick ambled further into the room and placed both hands on the back of an empty chair.

"You need some help? I'm just waiting on prints, but I doubt they'll come back to anything. I could go over the evidence with Warrick?"

She pursed her lips, flicking her eyes over the stack of paperwork she had to read through and considering whether to offload them onto the eager Texan in favour of finishing on time for once. If she left now, she could make it home in time for breakfast with her daughter. It was tempting...

"How's Sara coming on with her 419?" She asked instead.

"I don't know." He frowned, straightening up.

"I thought I asked you to give her a hand once you finished with your case?"

"Yeah, but come on Cath ... an explosives case – that's going to take hours to go through the evidence. Sara's body was a straight-forward domestic, she can handle that on her own."

"Nick," she sighed, holding up her hands. She really was not in the mood for an argument today. "Go find Sara and see if she needs any help. If she doesn't, _then_ hook up with Warrick."

He looked down for a moment, before lifting her head back up, a tight smile playing on his face.

"Alright," he nodded, backing away from the desk. "Alright, I feel you. _You're_ in charge."

As he sloped towards the door, Catherine's features contorted into a frown and she opened her mouth to question his attitude-laden comment; but by the time she had found the words, he had already gone.

Leaving the unspoken sentence hanging, she threw a hand out helplessly and slumped down into Grissom's chair.

So much for breakfast.


	4. Chapter 4

With an hour left before the end of her shift, and not really wanting to face the rest of the team given Nick's bad mood, Catherine had hunkered herself down in Grissom's office and began perusing Dr Chambers' client notes.

She wasn't really expecting to find anything of use in them just yet; she would need to scrutinise them more closely to see if there were any subtle clues to help identify their suspect. She was merely glancing through them with the optimistic hope that something might jump out at her.

In the sixth file, something did; although it was not exactly what she was looking for.

It had started out pretty much like the first five. The handwritten note scrawled on the first page simply read _Female, 29._ Beneath it, neatly typed up word-for-word from the doctor's original hand-written notes, read a basic synopsis of the patient's background.

 _S moved to Las Vegas three years ago, originally from San Francisco_

 _Works for law enforcement – graveyard shift, long hours_

 _Little opportunity for a social life_

 _Recently suffered minor injuries in a work-related incident_

 _S declines to provide family background at this time..._

Sucking in a sharp breath, Catherine threw the folder onto the desk as if it had burned her.

x X x

It had been a long day, but not quite long enough, as Catherine found herself all too soon back in Grissom's office, staring at that stack of folders again.

Of course, once she realised that it was Sara's file, she had slammed it closed and not looked any further. And it remained where she had left it, perched quietly atop her desk, taunting her.

It had been playing on her mind all day, despite her best efforts. All the way home and all the way back again, she had kept circling back to that haunting question: why was Sara in therapy?

Naturally, she knew that she couldn't read any further. After all, Sara hadn't blown up the shrink's office – that much she was certain of. And if Sara wasn't a suspect, then there was no need for her to read any more of her case notes.

And aside from that, it was none of her business. Sara was her colleague, and unless she chose to confide in Catherine – or anyone at work – her private life was just that. _Private_.

But that inherent awareness didn't stop Catherine's curiosity from working overtime.

The first page of Sara's notes had mentioned a recent injury at work and Catherine had realised quickly, with more than a pang of guilt, that she must have been referring to the lab explosion. Greg had come out of it the worst, but Sara had still been caught up in the blast. Perpetually stubborn, the brunette had brushed the incident aside, insisting to anyone who asked that she was fine. But what if that wasn't true?

What if the emotional trauma of almost being blown up had forced her into therapy? That would make it Catherine's fault, since she was responsible for that explosion.

And if it _wasn't_ that, then what else could it be?

Shaking her head to clear the distressing thoughts, Catherine forced herself to look away from the doctor's files and instead picked up the night's assignments. Thankfully, it was a relatively crime-free evening in Las Vegas so far.

Getting a jump on things in an attempt to limit any unnecessary small-talk, she found the team still getting ready in the locker room.

"Hey guys," she greeted, keeping her gaze low. "Not much going on so far tonight – Nick, you've got a burglary in Henderson and Sara..." she paused, taking just a second to glance at her colleague's face, "you've got a drug den in Summerlin. Be careful."

It was said as a simple statement and nobody questioned it – drug dens were hazardous scenes to process, they all know that. Between the chemicals, the drugs themselves and the potential for hidden weapons, it wasn't something most people revelled in.

To her relief, they also didn't appear to notice the hint of concern lacing her voice or the way she held onto the folder for a second longer than necessary, just to keep that tenuous connection with Sara long enough to steal another lingering glimpse of her face.

She looked fairly relaxed, composed. Did she know that her counsellor's office had been blown up yesterday? Or that her case notes were sitting in Grissom's office just down the hall? Would she be upset to know that her colleague had breached that line of confidence between herself and her doctor, albeit accidentally?

Clearing her throat, Catherine released the file and took a deliberate step back.

"Warrick, carry on with the case from this morning – I'll be in Grissom's office going over the paperwork if you need me."

Having said all that was needed, and too on-edge to hang around any longer, she spun on her heel and sailed back out just as abruptly as she had arrived.

In her wake, Nick turned to his compadres and threw his hands out in frustration.

"Burglary?" He scoffed. "Man, she really has it in for me this week!"

x X x

So far, she had done well to avoid her team for most of the evening, but she knew that it wouldn't last forever.

Thankfully, it wasn't a sulky Nick who skulked into her office shortly after midnight.

"Ahem," Doc Robbins cleared his throat, stepping out of the bright sterile hallway and taking a moment to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. "Sorry to interrupt."

"That's alright," she smiled, sitting forwards and folding her hands on her paperwork. She was always pleased to see Albert, even when she was in a bad mood. "What can I do for you, Doc?"

He clicked across the floor and settled himself in the chair opposite her, taking a moment to compose himself. The careful wind-up peaked her interest and she straightened up, patiently waiting for him to speak. Finally, he met her gaze and she recognised instantly that this was not a social call.

"I wanted to ask you ... is everything alright with Sara?"

"Sara?" Catherine echoed, her gaze instinctively falling onto the untouched folder sitting inoffensively by her side. "Why?"

Doc fidgeted in his seat, adjusting his cane awkwardly where it lay across his lap.

"Well, she was assisting during the post for her domestic murder victim yesterday and part way through she just ... ran out."

"What?" Cath sat forward again, concern clouding her features. "She just ... left, during the post mortem?"

"She seemed distracted from the minute she arrived, and then she took off without a word of warning." He shook his head, as perplexed by it as Catherine was. "It was ... out of character. I just thought you ought to know, in Grissom's absence."

"Thank you." She nodded absently, having only heard half of what he said. When he didn't make any move to leave and it became apparent that he was waiting for some kind of assurance, she plastered a professional mask over her visible concern and exhaled. "Leave it with me, I'll check in with her."

Seemingly satisfied, for now, the coroner offered a small smile and pushed himself out of the chair. Catherine watched him move steadily across the room, resisting the urge to glance back at the folder by her side, when he paused and turned back to her.

"Catherine," he licked his lips, considering his next words for a moment. "I'm glad Grissom had the surgery. It was time."

"Yeah, it was." She smiled, relieved at the change of subject.

"It must be a weight off his mind knowing that you're taking care of things here."

This time, she couldn't stop her gaze from falling back to the desk, guilt seeping back into her expression.

By the time she looked back up again, he had already gone.

x X x

She didn't know how long she had been pacing for, threading her hands through her golden hair and casting furtive glances back at the desk. She had hidden Sara's file from view under a pile of others, but she still knew that it was there.

Obviously, Doc Robbins' comments were a cause for concern. Sure, Sara had kicked off with suspects before, and even colleagues, but she had never just left a room in the middle of a task. In fact, when she was engrossed in a case, her attention was like a laser beam. She had been known to work for four hours straight without ever tearing her gaze from the computer screen.

More concerning, though, was the fact that Sara hadn't mentioned this herself. She had handed Catherine her preliminary report at the end of her shift yesterday with a smile and not so much as a hint of upset. Of course, that was before Catherine had accidentally read her file, but she still liked to believe that she would have noticed if there was something obviously bothering the brunette.

Granted, Sara wasn't exactly an open book, but Catherine was a trained observer. Surely she would have noticed...

Stopping in the middle of the room, she closed her eyes and formulated a mental list of all of the things she knew about Sara Sidle:

\- Born and raised in California

\- Went to Harvard, then Berkeley

\- Began her career in the San Francisco coroner's office, before moving to the crime lab

\- Met Grissom at an entomology lecture

\- Had the same bad choice in man as Catherine herself did, if Hank the EMT was anything to go by

\- Became a vegetarian after spending all night watching a pig decompose as part of an experiment

Was that it? After three years of working with the girl, she knew as much about her now as she had done after just a few months.

She dropped her head into her hands and exhaled. She had to admit that that was pretty poor. She couldn't even hazard a guess as to Sara's hobbies, or her dreams in life. Or her fears...

Naturally, she was going to have to confront her about walking out of the post mortem; but Sara's cagey demeanour was part of the reason she knew so little about her in the first place. She doubted that she would get anything more than a mumbled apology and a half-baked excuse. Sara would probably say that she was preoccupied with another case, or she was tired, or she had felt unwell and needed some air. And who was Catherine to refute any of those excuses? After all, she had no reason to believe that anything more untoward was going on, right?

Slowly, her gaze lifted and settled on the desk again.

Of course, it would be so much easier to approach this conversation with the appropriate tone if she went into it with _all_ of the information available to her.


	5. Chapter 5

Although the temptation was growing with every passing minute, she didn't read Sara's file again.

She did, however, find herself periodically glancing at the door, waiting for the young brunette to return from her scene. A drugs den could take a couple of hours to process, or it could take all night, depending what kind of mess she was dealing with.

It was shortly after 4am by the time Catherine finally caught a glimpse of her colleague stalking past the office. She launched herself out of her seat and was across the room in a flash, before stopping abruptly in the threshold. While she had spent most of the morning eagerly awaiting Sara's return, it suddenly dawned on her that she had no idea how she was going to approach this conversation.

It was clear from her conversation with Doc Robbins that something about Sara's case had upset her; yet she had completed her preliminary report and handed it in as if everything was fine.

This meant that Catherine was coming from a position of power – she knew that Sara was in counselling, but Sara didn't _know_ that Catherine knew that. As far as Sara was concerned, Catherine thought that everything _was_ fine. That made things harder, for Cath was going to have to sound out what was bothering her colleague without letting on that she knew something was going on.

Somehow, she didn't think this was the time or place for Sara to find out that Catherine had read part of her counselling file.

After a long moment's deliberation, she decided the best way forward would be to downplay the incident and express concern for Sara in general. The last thing she wanted to do was to appear accusatory in her tone and cause the other woman's defences to take over.

With a vague battle-plan in mind, she set about searching the labs one by one– starting with the one that Sara had virtually adopted as her own and had thus become referred to as 'Sara's lab'.

Unfortunately, Sara's lab was empty. The lights were out and there was no evidence of the brunette having been in here all night.

Trying a different tack, she swung by Greg's lab and learned from the smitten young tech that Sara had last been seen heading towards the locker room.

As Catherine meandered her way through the halls, she mused on this and decided that perhaps the locker room was a good place to have this conversation. It was far enough away from the labs to be out of sight of prying eyes and it might seem less confrontational than hauling the girl into an office.

She was also relieved, upon arriving outside the locker room, to find the object of her search to be alone.

Sara was stood in front of her own locker, with her back to the door. As Catherine stepped into the room, she saw the younger woman slide her shirt off and suddenly she hesitated. Would it be fair to confront a colleague about her personal life when she was half-dressed?

Then again, Sara wouldn't exactly be in a position to make a speedy exit right now either.

Deciding to bite the bullet, Catherine stepped forwards and was about to clear her throat in order to get Sara's attention, when something caught her eye and promptly silenced her voice.

Propped up inside Sara's locker door was a mirror, and as she undressed in front of it, Catherine found herself staring at the reflection of her bare stomach in the glass.

Or rather the cluster of small, red cuts littering her pale, slender stomach.

x X x

She swept her hands across the desk, clearing it in one swift movement and causing an avalanche of papers to flutter around her and swirl to rest at her feet. Placing both hands flat on the scarred wood, she sucked in several deep breaths and tried to blink away the tears clouding her vision.

She could have been mistaken, of course. Or maybe it was a trick of the light.

Or maybe, Sara had been cutting herself.

She had scampered out of the room before the brunette had even known she was there, racing back to the sanctuary of Grissom's office before anyone could stop her and question the horror that was undoubtedly written all over her face.

Sara was _cutting_?

The very idea of it made her stomach knot. She felt sick.

No, she felt angry – angry with Sara, for being stupid enough to harm herself in this way. And she was angry with herself, for not realising sooner that her young colleague was struggling so much. She was angry with Grissom, for his complete and utter ignorance when it came to Sara...

"Hey Cath."

The voice startled her so much that she almost fell over in her hurry to spin around.

"Oh, Warrick." She gasped.

"Hey, you alright?" He frowned, noting the mess on the floor with a raised eyebrow. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you."

"No, no I'm fine." She lied, trying and failing to appear blasé about the state of the office. "What's up?"

"Hodges got the trace report on our explosives." He explained, proffering the file towards her. "You sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine." She accepted his offering and promptly moved back around the desk to put more distance between them; an unsuccessful attempt to disguise how obviously rattled she was. "I was just ... looking for something. Where ... where are the rest of the team?"

"Nick's working in one of the labs and Sara just got back from her scene."

Her face must have clouded over with something unreadable at the mention of the brunette's name, because he came closer and rested his hands on the empty desk.

"Cath, are you alright?" He asked firmly.

Pursing her lips, she forced herself to meet his steely gaze and nodded.

"I'm fine, Rick. Has Mandy got anything on our prints yet?"

Taken aback by the question, he straightened up.

"I don't know."

"Find out." She asserted calmly, settling back into her seat and pretending to read the trace results that he had brought her.

Warrick hung around for a moment longer, not sure whether he should leave her alone when she was clearly upset about something. However, when it became apparent that she wasn't going to drop this facade until he had left, he decided that it wasn't worth his effort to push her right now. With a resigned sigh, he turned and left her to whatever internal chaos she was battling.

She didn't look up from the report until she was certain that he had vacated the room, at which point she slammed the folder closer and tossed it aside. She had bigger things to think about right now than some psycho with access to dynamite.

If Sara was cutting – _if_ – then she couldn't simply ignore it. But how the hell was she supposed to deal with it? It wasn't the kind of thing that she could just ask her outright. And how was she supposed to bring it up without admitting that she had spied on her getting changed. Lord knows, Sara was notoriously defensive about her privacy.

Catherine tried to think of another occasion when she had seen Sara undressing; tried to picture whether she had had any scars before, but she couldn't bring anything to mind. In fact, she couldn't recall ever once actually witnessing Sara getting changed.

Perhaps this was why.

Closing her eyes, she fought to recall the sight. She definitely saw red marks on her stomach. If they were old scars, they would surely be faded. So, did that mean that these were recent cuts? And if so, had she done it before, or was this the first time? Somehow, she didn't imagine this was a habit Sara would suddenly develop after thirty years.

And when had she done it? Today, after work? Had her domestic violence case upset her so much that she had gone home and taken a razor blade to her skin?

The thought made Cath's stomach turn and she swallowed hard around the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat. Shaking the distressing images away, she took a deep breath and tried to regroup. Before Warrick had interrupted, a thought had occurred to her... Grissom. She had been angry with Grissom for being so ignorant that he hadn't realised that Sara was hurting herself. But then, how could she be sure that he didn't know?

As a supervisor, he was required to carry out regular one-to-one appraisals with his team. Perhaps Sara had already confided in him. It wasn't exactly something that he would be in a rush to share with the rest of the team.

Pushing herself out of his heavy leather chair, she moved to the filing cabinet behind her and dragged the middle drawer open. Gil's filing system was about as organised as the rest of his office, but she knew him well enough to be able to decipher it and she quickly located Sara's personnel file.

A guilty voice in the back of her mind told her that she shouldn't be doing this; that this was just as much of an invasion of privacy as reading Sara's counselling notes, but she quickly silenced it. After all, she was Acting Supervisor in Grissom's absence. Why the hell shouldn't she have access to the staff files?

However, her guilt soon dissipated when it became abundantly clear that the answers she sought did not lie in Sara's appraisal notes. It would appear, from her brief glance through the paperwork, that Grissom had never asked Sara about her life away from the office. Ever.

There were the usual questions about her goals within work, praise for cases she had worked well and chastisement for the occasions when Sara had gotten in too deep. But there was nothing at all about her personal life. Even when Sara had become too invested in a case, it did not appear that Gil had ever questioned the deeper reasons behind her irrational behaviour.

Quietly resuming her anger towards the boss for his apparent neglect of their young teammate, Catherine returned the folder to its rightful home and turned to stare at the mess she had made of his office.

With a frustrated groan, she stooped down and began tidying the scattered papers into neat piles, until eventually her hand grazed a familiar folder and she stilled.

She shouldn't. All of the reasons why she shouldn't remained the same as they had been yesterday. Sara was entitled to her privacy and reading this would be a massive breach of that. It would also be a sure-fire way to make sure that Sara never trusted her again.

Catherine had made the decision yesterday that she was not going to read any further than she already had.

But then, yesterday, Catherine hadn't known that Sara was hurting herself.

 **x X x**

 **Oooh :) Should Catherine be doing this? Let me know your thoughts**


	6. Chapter 6

**Happy New Year all! I hope you like this one, although I apologise in advance for how dark it is.**

 **Thank you for all the reviews so far, please do let me know what you think :)**

 **x X x**

The sound of her phone ringing startled her out of her deep concentration and she snatched it up off the desk.

"Willows," she answered, so rattled that she didn't even think to check the caller ID.

" _Catherine_?"

Oh no.

She grimaced, quickly checking her watch. How was it that time already?

"Mom, I'm sorry!" She exhaled. "I got held up at work and completely forgot to call. Did Lindsey get off to school okay?"

" _Catherine, it's nearly lunchtime_." Lily chastised, and Catherine could practically hear her rolling her eyes. " _She's been in school for two hours_!"

"I know, I'm sorry." She repeated guiltily. "I don't even know how the time got away from me."

" _Catherine, I'm working this afternoon. Are you going to be home in time to collect Lindsey_?"

"Yes, yes; of course I'll be home. I'm leaving the office now." She lied. "Thanks, I'll ... I'll talk to you later."

She heard her mother inhale, as if to speak further, but hung up before she had chance. She really didn't need _that_ lecture right now. Besides, she'd heard it all before.

And in truth, she did know how the time had gotten away from her, and it was still staring up at her from the desk.

She had planned on reading just enough to establish what had driven Sara into counselling in the first instance – assuming that it was the same thing causing her to self-harm. Catherine had figured that once she knew that, she could find a way to help her young colleague get back on track. If she played it right, Sara would never need to know how she had come by the information.

And then she had started to read ... and read, and read...

When she was a little girl, Catherine's favourite book had been Alice in Wonderland. It was the reason Lindsey's middle name was Alice, though she had never told Eddie that.

She would curl up in an armchair with the dog-eared book resting on her lap and before long she could feel herself getting sucked into the page, tumbling down that rabbit hole right behind her favourite heroine. Before she knew it, she was in Wonderland herself. She could smell the leaves of the trees; hear the cracking of twigs beneath her feet as she followed Alice through the woods, watched on by the Cheshire Cat's feral smile.

She had that same feeling when she began to read Sara's file – only instead of Wonderland, she felt herself being dragged into the warren of Sara's past, until the words melted away and she could see it playing out before her very eyes.

She saw a young woman, drunk and erratic, screaming at her husband. She saw him swing a closed fist towards her face and heard the crack of her jaw as it fractured. She saw the blood spill over the woman's lips as she coughed and spluttered around a mouthful of obscenities.

And behind them, peering silently through the stair rails, she saw a frightened little girl start to cry.

Barely even aware of her own actions anymore, she had turned the page and the scene faded into a new, equally troubling picture.

The woman was still screaming, but this time the object of her anger was a teenage boy with unruly dark hair and brooding eyes. He was screaming back, his hands balled at his side and his face flushed with insolence.

The man waded into the fight, grabbing his son by the collar and lifting him clear off the ground. As the boy found himself pinned against the wall, the woman launched at her husband and began to pound against his back, a barrage of vitriol spilling from her mouth in an incoherent flood.

The struggle continued, until the man spun around and backhanded her across the face. In doing so, he slackened his grip on the boy's shirt, causing him to fall in a heap on the ground. Picking himself up, the child snatched a bag off the ground and stalked to the door.

There were more angry words from all parties, although the woman was now crumpled on the floor with her husband standing over her and from this position, there was little she could do. Then the boy was gone, stalking through the front door and down the steps, away from the abuse.

Finally, the fourth member of the family made themselves known. Little Sara, just eight-years-old, darted out from behind the couch and scampered after her brother. Following him down the pebbled driveway, she called out his name, but he never stopped. She caught him up where the path met the road, her tiny hands gripping his arm and dragging him to a halt. He spun around, grabbing her by the shoulders and trying to usher her back towards the house. She resisted, digging her bare feet into the cold stones.

Crouching down to her level, he reached up and wiped her tears away with the pad of his thumb. He promised her that she would be okay. Then he straightened up, adjusted his bag on his shoulder, and evenly told her to go back inside.

She didn't go back inside. She sat on the sidewalk, crying to herself, as she watched him disappear into the darkness. Behind her, back in the house, a different kind of darkness took hold as her parents continued to tear each other to pieces, each blaming the other for their eldest child's departure.

By now, Catherine was lost, absorbed into the story. More pages, more tragic tales – snippets of a life that no child should have to live. The night Sara got into the middle of a fight and her arm was broken. The night her mother almost choked to death on her own vomit, until Sara managed to roll her onto her side, saving her life. The night her father left the house after a fight and didn't return for three days.

They were disorganised, out of sync, as if Sara had been reliving the memories as and when they came to her, rather than sequentially.

The man was asleep now, laid on his back across the bed, his bare chest rising and falling fitfully. The woman was stood over him, staring down at him through wild brown eyes. Suddenly, she raised her hands and Catherine saw a flash – the reflection of a streetlight outside ricocheting off smooth metal – before the blade was slammed into his chest.

He jolted awake, his mouth opening and closing to no effect as his consciousness struggled to comprehend what was happening. His face flamed as the last dregs of anger left his body, replaced with only fear and desperation.

She pulled the knife out, spraying a line of cast-off up the wall and across the ceiling, before bringing it crashing down again. He held out his hands, but he couldn't stop her and a second wound punctured his chest. Thick, red foam bubbled out of his mouth. She had ruptured his lung.

Again and again and again, she lifted that blade above her head and pierced his flesh, leaving trails of crimson all over the room like graffiti. The fifth time, he lurched off the bed, curling himself protectively into a ball. With the sixth, he emitted a desperate, strangled cry.

With the seventh, he finally lay still.

The woman dropped her hand, still clutching the blood-drenched knife, and walked calmly out of the room, leaving her husband's decimated body lying beside the bed ... and her young child curled up on the floor of the closet, the horrifying scene forever burning itself into her dark eyes as her father's blood spatter stained her pale skin like a scar...

That was why Catherine had forgotten to take her daughter to school.

Back in the office, her cell phone still clutched in her hand, she suddenly felt very cold.

Turning her attention to the folders she had earlier swept onto the floor and subsequently reorganised, a concerning thought wormed its way to the forefront of her mind. Rifling through the pile, she located Sara's report on the domestic murder she had investigated a couple of days earlier. Flicking through the preliminary pages, she settled on the post mortem report and cast her eyes hurriedly over the words. When she found what she was looking for, she felt a chill run down her spine.

The victim was stabbed seven times.

Suddenly, the reason Sara had run out of the autopsy, sparking Doc Robbins' concern, was all too clear. A marriage filled with domestic violence, a woman pushed to the edge ... it must have been like staring down at her own father on that table.

All that was missing was a frightened, traumatised little girl.

Until, that is, Catherine had obliviously thrown Sara square into the middle of it. She must have felt like she was back in that closet again, her father's hot blood on her skin as her mother sat calmly in the next room waiting for the police to arrive.

She hadn't realised that she'd started crying until a crystal tear dropped onto the page and started to soak into the ink, blurring the words.

Catherine hurriedly wiped them away, but they were quickly replaced.

Putting the report aside and picking Sara's counselling file back up, she realised with a heavy heart that it wasn't the worrying confirmation that her young colleague was self-harming, or even her deeply tragic childhood, that was really upsetting her. It was the sad realisation that she had had the chance to help Sara ... a chance that she had casually let get away.

It was right there in black and white – her own name.

The doctor had asked Sara to identify someone in her life, a maternal figure who could help her repair some of the damage that her mother had inflicted on her fragile young psyche.

And Sara had identified her.

The notes were all dated, making it very easy to establish when this conversation had taken place.

Catherine sat back and closed her eyes, drawing the memory to mind. She was ashamed to admit that it hadn't even made a blip on her radar at the time; although recalling it through this new light, she found that every detail was crystal clear.

She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn't even heard Sara enter, until the brunette cleared her throat nervously.

" _Hey," she greeted quietly. "You got a minute?"_

 _Catherine glanced away from the computer screen and cast the briefest of glances at her colleague, before resuming her work._

" _Make it quick, Grissom's waiting on these results." She said, completely missing the soft frown that marred Sara's face._

" _Okay." The younger woman swallowed. "I, uh ..."_

 _When she trailed off, Catherine finally fixed her with her full attention, albeit somewhat impatiently._

" _What, Sara? What is it?"_

 _Sara pursed her lips into a tight smile and shook her head._

" _You know what, you're busy. It can wait."_

 _She made to leave and Catherine rolled her eyes in annoyance at being interrupted. However, before she reached the door, Sara turned back to her with an optimistic glint in her eyes which Cath also, sadly, missed._

" _Hey, could we, maybe, grab a bite to eat after work? There's something I kinda need to ask you."_

" _I'm busy." Catherine answered instinctively, her interest now fully fixed back on her work. "Why don't you ask one of the guys?"_

" _Yeah," Sara sighed. "Maybe."_

With a frustrated groan, Catherine ran her hands through her hair. Sara had come to her for help and she had turned her away without so much as sparing her a glance. She hadn't stopped to question why Sara was coming to her, or what she needed to ask. She hadn't felt the slightest iota of guilt at turning her away.

Well, she felt it now. It was like a wave, coursing through her and seeking out every last nerve ending until it felt like she was being electrocuted.

The papers in her hands shook and she looked down, fighting through the tears which had reappeared in the corners of her blue eyes. There was one page left.

She had come this far, she realised; she may as well find out how it ended. Turning to the notes from Sara's final session, she sucked in a steadying breath and dared herself to read it.

And there it was; the one thing she had not wanted to see.

Sara had told her doctor that she had made a mistake – Catherine was _not_ the person who could help her.

And, according to Sara, there was no one else who could. She was out of options.

That had been the same day that the counsellor's office was blown up. The day before Catherine saw those self-inflicted marks tainting her beautiful skin.


	7. Chapter 7

**Thank you, as always, for the reviews. They make my day. And look, a shiny new chapter, just for you :)**

 **x X x**

It was on the drive home that Catherine realised there was something bothering her about Sara's final statement to her doctor.

Naturally, she was heartbroken to learn that Sara didn't feel she had anyone else she could confide in, now that she had apparently given up on Catherine's support. But, reading deeper into that, Cath found a more perplexing element – one that even her doctor appeared to have missed.

She had chosen Catherine and when that failed, she had been left with no one else. So, had she really _chosen_ Catherine at all? Or was she simply the only female friend in Sara's life, period?

Had she wanted to confide in Catherine because she trusted her, or because Catherine was her only option?

The distressing train of thought had gone round in Catherine's head until she was dizzy; but ultimately, she had decided that it didn't really matter. Maybe Sara had only come to her out of desperation, rather than through choice. The point is she _had_ come to her. And if she was Sara's only hope, then she had better fix things between them before it was too late for her troubled young friend.

She had considered going to see her and attempting to mend fences straight away, but had quickly disregarded that idea. It was nearly midday and Sara had long-since left the office. Her address was in her personnel file, but even if Catherine looked it up, what was she supposed to do?

She couldn't exactly turn up unannounced and admit that she had delved into the depths of her deepest and darkest thoughts, and then beg for her unwavering trust.

No, she decided, she would go home and take care of her daughter and she would figure out what to do with her newfound knowledge later. Once she had slept ... if she still could sleep.

x X x

It hadn't come easy, but she had at least managed to get a little shut-eye. Without her mother's oppressive presence, the house was blissfully quiet and, after a nap and a shower, Catherine found herself meditating contemplatively on her situation over a pot of coffee.

It was Greg's special blend, which he had bought for her last birthday. Knowing how expensive it was, she saved it for really special moments, or times when she really needed cheering up. Today was the latter.

Okay, so she had messed up with Sara once. That didn't mean that all was lost. Sara had, after all, taken herself into counselling. That meant that she wanted to deal with her past. _And_ she had identified Catherine as a potential confidante.

That was a start. It suggested that Sara had been in a positive state of mind, at least until a week ago. So, she'd had a setback during her last session; that could be easily overcome, with a little work.

Unfortunately, her quiet optimism was brought to an unwelcome end by the slamming of her front door.

"Cath?"

"In here." She sighed, tipping her head towards the ceiling and tracking the sound of heavy footsteps through her house.

A moment later, her sister's head popped around the door, followed by the rest of her.

"Hey, I thought you might be asleep." The nurse greeted, sauntering in and blithely helping herself to a cup of coffee.

"Hmm." Catherine watched her movements with a scowl. She did not ordinarily share this particular coffee. "That's why you came in so quietly?"

Nancy smirked, taking a long mouthful and slinking into the seat beside her.

"Hey, this is good stuff." She nodded approvingly. The comment earned her another filthy look, which went completely ignored.

"Did you want something?" Catherine asked accusingly. Nancy blinked, putting her mug down a little too harshly, causing a few drops of the dark liquid to splash onto the table.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise I needed a reason to visit."

"I'm sorry, you don't." Catherine waved a hand in meek apology. "I just ... had a bad day."

It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either, and the perceptive younger sister spotted the omission.

"Have you talked to mom, about Sam?" She asked, assuming that was the cause of her sibling's bad mood.

Catherine glanced away.

"Not recently." She exhaled. "She still insists that she did the right thing by hiding it from me all these years."

"Well, Sam was married." Nancy shrugged, reaching across the table and helping herself to an apple from the fruit bowl.

"So?" Catherine snapped, feeling her temper rise again.

"So, maybe they just couldn't deal with the scandal. He did have two sons to think of, remember?"

"I'm not saying they needed to put out a press release; they could still have told _me_." Cath spat angrily. "Instead of letting me believe that my father was some drunken one-night-stand that mom picked up in a bar."

"Would it have made you feel better knowing that your father was a philandering mobster that mom picked up in a casino?"

Catherine didn't know whether her sister was expecting an answer to the question, but she didn't offer one either way.

Involuntarily, she found herself thinking about Sara again. She had read the girl's file to find out why she had gone into counselling and in a way she had found the answer, along with a whole lot more.

Sara had wanted to understand her past, so that she could move on from it.

In a strange way, Catherine was going through something similar with Sam. She was having to re-evaluate her entire life – all of the times that Sam had been around, and all the times that he hadn't. The weeks and months her mother had spent pining for him. It all made sense now. Granted, she had discovered that her father, the invisible man she had been fantasizing about for her entire life, was a murderer. But that still didn't mean she couldn't put certain questions to rest, at last.

Sara, on the other hand, had always known what her mother had done – she had seen it with her own eyes. And the answers that she sought weren't going to be so easy to find...

"Hey." Nancy called firmly, tapping her on the arm to get her attention back from wherever it had wandered to.

"What?" Cath huffed, irritated at being pulled from her thoughts for a second time. Nancy scrutinised her for a long minute, before settling back in her chair and folding her arms.

"Alright, what have you done?"

"What?" Catherine echoed defensively.

"You've got that guilty look on your face, like you've done something you shouldn't have."

Cath chewed on her lower lip, considering the viability of lying. She really didn't want to have to get into this right now, especially with her sanctimonious little sister. But it was too late for that, she had been rumbled. They always could tell when the other had been up to no good.

Resting her elbows on the table, she dropped her head into her hands, which was as good as a confession in Nancy's eyes.

"Is it about Sam?" She asked again, causing Catherine to peer between her fingers and frown.

"No, it's not about Sam." She snapped. "It's about Sara."

"Sara?" Nancy scrunched up her face in surprise. "Your colleague?"

"Yep, the very same." Catherine dropped her hands and slumped back in her seat, waiting for the interrogation that she knew was coming. However, Nancy's next enquiry was not what she expected.

"Does this have something to do with Eddie?"

"What?" Her head shot up. "No, what would it have to do with Eddie?"

"Well, Sara investigated his case, didn't she?" Nancy frowned. "Has something happened with it?"

"No, no, no." Catherine shook her head firmly. "It's nothing like that at all."

"Okay." Nancy shrugged, not one to be deterred easily. "So, then what?"

"I can't tell you." Cath pursed her lips. "You'll judge me."

"I'm already judging you." The nurse amended calmly. "So, what have you got to lose?"

Self-respect, professional ethics ... a friend, Catherine thought to herself sadly.

"Okay." She shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. "A couple of days ago, we picked up this case. A psychiatrist's office was vandalised. The counsellor gave us access to his patient case notes – redacted, of course – to see if there was any evidence as who was responsible."

"And was there?"

"We're still looking into it." Cath waved a hand dismissively, indicating that that was not an important part of the story.

"So..." Nancy drawled when she didn't continue. At Catherine's raised eyebrow, she slowly put the pieces together. "Oh ... Sara's a patient?

"Yep."

"But, you said they were redacted?"

"They were, but it didn't take a genius to work it out." Cath shrugged, toying with a loose thread on the sleeve of her sweater.

"And ... as soon as you realised they were her notes, you put them down, right?" Nancy asked pointedly.

"Of course." Cath scowled defensively, standing up and pouring herself another cup of coffee, if for no other reason than to give her nervous hands something to do.

"So, why the guilt?"

Catherine didn't answer right away, but Nancy waited; watching as she hovered for a moment by the coffee pot before slinking back to the table, her lower lip pinned between her teeth in a nervous gesture.

"Someone came to see to me about Sara, because they were worried about her. So, I went to talk to her, to see if there was something wrong."

Nancy nodded encouragingly when she stalled. Catherine swallowed, trying to stop the images from reforming in her head as she told her story.

"I found her in the locker room; she was getting changed, and I saw ... self-harm marks, on her stomach."

"Oh God." All humour had fallen from Nancy's face by now. "What did she say about them?"

"Nothing, because I didn't ask her." Catherine sniffed, hearing a quiver in her own voice despite her best efforts to keep her nerves at bay. "I didn't know what to do so I just ... walked away."

"Ah." Nancy nodded slowly. "Well, that explains why you're feeling so sorry for yourself."

"No, it doesn't." Catherine shook her head, tears starting to build in her eyes. "I went back to the office, and I read her file."

"Catherine..."

"I sat and read every fucking word of it, and I know that it was wrong and I shouldn't have done it, but I have and now I don't know how I'm supposed to face her again."

She squeezed her eyes closed, although it failed to stop the flood of tears that finally spilled down her flushed cheeks. Burying her face in her hands, she felt, rather than saw, her sister get up and suddenly two arms wrapped tightly around her trembling shoulders.

"You're an idiot." Nancy mumbled into her hair.

"That's not particularly helpful." She retorted sadly, turning gratefully into the embrace. To her dismay, Nancy quickly ended the hug and returned to her seat.

"Well, I'm not sure what else you want from me?" She fixed her with an unsettlingly cold look. "You breached a colleague's privacy. You have two choices: you can 'fess up or live with the guilt."

"Oh, if only it was that simple." Catherine wiped at her eyes with a dry laugh. "Sara's got a lot of things that she's trying to deal with right now. She really needs help, and I could help her, except..."

"Except that you're not supposed to know any of this." Nancy quirked an eyebrow.

"She wanted to tell me, Nance." She explained hopefully. "She told her doctor that, she wanted me to help her to deal with ... everything."

"So, what happened? Why didn't she?"

"Well, she came to tell me something and ... I was busy. I ..."

"You shut her down." Nancy chucked coldly, shaking her head. "Oh, it just gets better."

"Yeah, I know." Cath nodded shamefacedly. "But that was before I knew what was going on."

"Of course it was. She was trying to tell you what was going on, but you didn't listen."

"I'm listening now." It sounded pathetic even to her own ears, but it was all she could offer to defend herself.

"Yeah, well it sounds like it's too late for that." Nancy rolled her eyes, snatching up her bag from where she had abandoned it on the table and standing up. Catherine sat and watched her stalk out of the room before her legs caught up with her mind and she scrambled to run after her.

"No, it's not." She hollered, stalking her sister through the house. "I just have to get her to trust me."

Nancy stalled in the hallway, spinning back to face her.

"By spying on her while she's undressing and reading her confidential psychiatric notes?" She snorted. "Yeah, okay, good luck with that."

"She doesn't need to know that." Cath frowned. "I just need to find a way to convince her that she can trust me, so she'll open up to me on her own."

"Catherine." Nancy stepped forwards and gripped her arms tightly. "You don't get it – you cannot manipulate someone into trusting you. If Sara wants to open up to you then she will, but you can't force it."

She could see that her words weren't having any impact and rolled her eyes, tightening her grip until Catherine yelped in pain.

"I work in a hospital, Cath, and you know what would happen to me if I read someone's medical notes without proper cause. You've breached her confidence once. And you're already potentially in hot water after your little stunt with Sam's DNA. So, whatever you're planning, don't do it."

Catherine met her gaze and Nancy could see that it was already too late. A plan was forming.

"She trusted me once. She'll do it again." She said, sounding decidedly calmer than she actually felt as she stepped backwards out of her sister's grip. "I just need to remind her of that."

Resigning herself to the fact that she had lost, Nancy sighed and placed her hands on her hips.

"Alright, so how exactly are you going to do that?"

Catherine pursed her lips.

"I don't know." She shook her head slowly. "But I'll think of something."

Turning her back on her sibling, she moved through the house towards the kitchen, leaving Nancy standing in the hallway.

"You're playing with fire, Catherine." The nurse called out towards her retreating form. "Just remember, you're not the person who stands to get hurt if it all goes wrong."


	8. Chapter 8

Contrary to her lack of acknowledgement, Catherine _had_ heard Nancy's parting comment to her and she had to admit that it was true. If Sara were to ever find out what she had done, it would probably crush the poor girl and it would almost certainly be the final nail in the coffin of their tentative friendship.

However, she couldn't just sit back and wait for Sara to approach her for help again. Heaven knows how long that could take.

She was still contemplating her options while getting ready for work, when a little voice broke through her concentration.

"Mom?"

She turned, her shirt still sat in her hands where she had stalled while getting dressed, and smiled.

"Hey baby, you alright?"

Lindsey ambled lazily into room, crawling onto the bed beside her mother and resting her head on her shoulder.

"What time will you be home tomorrow?" The little girl asked, her hands finding Catherine's watch on her wrist and toying idly with it.

"Oh, I don't know honey." She answered honestly, wrapping an arm around her waist to tug her closer. "But I'll try to be back before you go to school."

Lindsey looked down sadly and Catherine felt her heart constrict. Even she didn't quite believe the promise, so why on earth should she expect Lindsey to? After all, Cath hadn't exactly been there for her recently. She'd been so wrapped up in her own problems; she'd barely had time for Lindsey's. Or anyone else's, it would appear...

The child clambered off the bed and started to leave, but Catherine caught her by the middle and pulled her back, pinning her between her legs.

"Hey," she called, tenderly sweeping soft blonde bangs aside. "You know that there's nothing you can't tell me, right? If there's ever anything at all on your mind, you can come to me."

"Has something happened?" Lindsey frowned, visibly perplexed by the unexpected show of affection.

"No, honey." Cath laughed softly, shaking her head. "I just ... I know that I haven't been around too much lately. I just wanted to make sure _you_ know that I'm always here if you need me. You're always my priority, even when it might feel like I'm distracted or too busy."

"I know." Lindsey nodded, threading her arms around Catherine's neck in a hug which was earnestly returned.

"I love you so much." She murmured into her daughter's shoulder, squeezing her a little tighter. After a minute that seemed altogether too short for Catherine's liking, Lindsey wriggled out of her grip and shuffled back to the door, her pyjamas trailing around her tiny feet as she went.

Catherine watched her leave the room, not entirely convinced of the assurance, but glad that she had at least reiterated her point.

Resuming her task of getting dressed, she found her concerns for Lindsey quickly replaced by her prior thoughts of Sara; although the two were along a similar theme. The mistakes she had been making with Lindsey were the same ones that had forced Sara to feel like she could no longer confide in her.

Catherine had a pattern. Something would happen that frightened her and, instead of dealing with it, she would throw herself into something else as a means of distraction. It was the reason she left home to become an exotic dancer after an argument with her mother about attending college. It was the reason she had adopted a cocaine habit when the dancing scene proved to be harder to tolerate with than she anticipated. It was the reason she had married Eddie, even though he wasn't the one she really wanted to be with, because she was struggling to face certain truths about herself.

And now, it was the reason she had been working continuously since Eddie died.

The night Sara had closed the investigation into Eddie's death, _Lindsey_ had comforted _her_. And she had let her, because she simply didn't know how to protect her child from the harsh realities of life anymore and that had frightened her. And then she had thrown herself back into her work in an attempt to push her feelings aside, when her daughter really needed her to be at home.

She realised now, with a pang of remorse, that she had done the exact same thing with Sara; only she'd done it three years ago, when the brunette first arrived in Vegas.

Holly was lying in surgery, barely clinging on to life; Warrick was facing the prospect of losing his job and Eddie had walked out on her, taking all of her savings with him, when Sara Sidle had sauntered into her life with that sassy attitude and endearing little half-smile. Catherine had liked her, but she hadn't wanted to like her.

She had thrown herself into her work, she had neglected Lindsey and she had pushed Sara away with both hands. In hindsight, she had blamed her behaviour on the divorce, on Holly's death, on the team being shuffled around as a result of Jim's demotion, Gil's promotion and of course Sara's arrival.

But the truth was much simpler. It was Catherine's pattern. She had been scared, so she had run away from it all again.

Well, not anymore. She wasn't going to run away from what was going on this time. She was going to be there for Lindsey, and she was going to be there for Sara ... whether Sara liked it or not.

x X x

In spite of her determination to fix things, she still hadn't found a solution to her problem; but she had at least established that she had three options:

\- She could ignore it for the time being and wait to see whether Sara approached her for help again – fat chance of that happening.

\- She could just confront Sara with her information and deal with the repercussions as they fell.

\- Or, she could orchestrate a way to spend time with Sara and hope that, with a bit of patience, an opening would present itself.

That is the option she decided to go with.

Thankfully, they only had two cases to work with that evening. Suddenly, handing out assignments became very easy.

x X x

"Okay guys," she announced, breezing into the break room. "Two cases tonight. Sara and Warrick, I want you two with me. Nicky – you're going solo, 420."

She had thought that the Texan would be pleased to get a murder case all to himself; but he seemed oddly peeved to be shunted off the primary case of the night.

However, seeing the exasperated look on her face, he wisely decided not to complain and shuffled off with a bemused shake of his head.

"I'll meet you two at the car." Catherine continued, gesturing to her comrades for the evening.

Perhaps it wasn't subtle, but at least she would be able to keep a close eye on Sara for the next few hours, and possibly even seek out an opportune moment to express her concerns.

x X x

In her defence, it was a big scene to process and Sara and Warrick were both happy to follow her instruction without complaint. She had sent Warrick to check the perimeter, leaving Sara with her inside the house.

They worked in quiet companionship, each busy with their own tasks. It was one of the reasons, Cath realised, that she enjoyed working with Sara. She didn't have to micromanage; Sara knew what needed to be done and was happy to get on with it without objection, yet the silence between them wasn't awkward.

She felt comfortable around Sara. She only hoped that the feeling was mutual.

Putting her Maglite down, she studied her colleague for a moment from across the room. The way she circled the body in contemplation, her dark eyes narrowed as she assessed each piece of evidence in turn. She was clearly in her element, picking up all the little pieces of a scene and putting them together in order to tell a story. She was like a kid with a brand new jigsaw puzzle.

Against her better judgement, she found herself thinking about all the domestic violence cases she had worked with Sara; the cases where the young woman went off the deep end. Sara was different on those cases. Gone were the relaxed movements, the clear focus and the casual little jokes.

Those cases were personal, and it never ended well when cases became personal. Catherine should know.

"'Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast'."

The random comment drew Catherine abruptly from her musings. Sara was photographing something on the floor beside the victim, an amused little smile playing on her face. When she picked it up, Catherine realised the reason for the Alice in Wonderland reference.

"You think the Queen of Hearts killed him?" She joked, moving closer and taking the item from her colleague. It was a little ornamental Cheshire Cat, still grinning away to itself in spite of the blood spattered across it's white teeth.

"It could have been knocked off the table during the struggle." Sara noted, identifying a dust pattern where the cat had previously been sat. Cath nodded absently, still examining the trinket.

"That was my favourite book growing up." She said with a wistful smile.

As Sara resumed her photography and Catherine bagged the ornament, they lapsed back into silence and Cath assumed that the conversation was over, so she was mildly surprised when Sara spoke up again.

"Mine was Charlotte's Web." She volunteered. "My dad used to read it to me when I was a kid – we must have read it a thousand times."

She continued taking pictures as she spoke, failing to notice how Catherine had stilled and was watching her intensely. From the soft tone of her voice and the relaxed little smile which danced all the way up to her eyes, it was evident that this was a happy memory for Sara.

"'If I can fool a bug ... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs'." She quoted, seemingly to herself.

"I know a man who would probably agree." Cath commented lightly, her face lighting up at the amused laugh that bubbled out of Sara.

As the moment of playful sweetness passed and they resumed their work, Catherine considered this new morsel carefully. It had never occurred to her that Sara might have had some good memories of her parents, spattered in amongst the abuse she obviously witnessed.

Quietly filing this little titbit of information away with the rest of her newfound facts about the enigmatic Miss Sidle, a curious observation wormed its way into her consciousness. Sara had just voluntarily – without any prompting or encouragement – offered up private information about herself. Granted, it was small ... alright, it was tiny, but it was a step in the right direction.

And it had been so _easy_. Catherine had told her something personal about herself and Sara had reciprocated. Trust, in exchange for trust.

Was it really that simple?

 **x X x**

 **Hope you like :)**


	9. Chapter 9

The idea that had planted itself in Catherine's mind continued to grow as they worked in companionable silence to finish processing the scene.

Of course, it made sense. She couldn't expect Sara to just trust her without giving up something in return. So, if she were to show Sara that _she_ trusted _her_ by confiding something personal, perhaps Sara would repay the favour.

Thankfully, she had plenty of dirty little secrets she could share with the brunette. All she had to do was wait for an opportunity to present itself.

It didn't take long for that to happen – in fact, they hadn't even made it back to the lab yet.

They had taken two cars and Catherine had left Warrick to load up his vehicle with the evidence, allowing herself some alone time with Sara on the drive back; although for the first twenty minutes, neither of them had uttered a word. So, when Sara finally spoke up, it caught Catherine off guard for a moment.

"Any idea how long Grissom will be off for?"

"A couple of weeks, maybe longer." She threw a fleeting glance towards her colleague, before returning her eyes to the road ahead. "Why?"

"No reason." Sara shrugged, keeping her own gaze firmly fixed out of the window. "There's just something I was going to ask him, but it can wait."

Catherine frowned, surreptitiously scrutinising her in an attempt to assess whether this was something she should be worried about; but Sara was giving nothing away from her tone or her demeanour.

She was so busy pondering how best to broach this subject, she almost jumped when Sara spoke up again.

"Presumably he's seen the news, about Sam Braun and his involvement in the bank heist."

And there it was, just what she was waiting for – an opening...

Everyone at the lab knew that Catherine and Sam had a personal relationship, but so far only Greg knew that he was her father. She was doing her best to keep that under wraps, at least until she knew whether he was going to be charged with murder.

Which is why it was the perfect little secret to share with Sara, in an effort to prove how much she trusted the brunette.

"He's my father." She stated bluntly. Sara snapped her head around to face her, not even attempting to hide her surprise at this news.

"What?"

"Yeah, go figure." Cath laughed nervously. "I, uh, suspected that he might be; I guess a part of me has always thought it was possible. So, I tested my DNA against the blood from the scarf."

"That's how you tied him to the murder." Sara realised aloud, tipping her head back against the headrest.

"Yep."

"Won't that make it inadmissible?"

"Probably." Cath exhaled, unconsciously tightening her grip on the steering wheel. "The judge could well decide to throw out the case because of this, because of me."

Sara didn't really seem to know what to say in response to that, so she settled for enquiring as to who else knew this about this interesting little development.

"Apart from Greg?" Cath asked, shooting her a small smile. "You."

Sara nodded in understanding, a silent assurance that it would stay that way. Not that Catherine had doubted Sara's ability to keep it a secret, of course. Sara wasn't exactly one for spreading office gossip.

"So, Grissom..." Sara continued, pursing her lips. Cath shook her head.

"No, and I'm really not looking forward to that conversation."

In all honestly, she was amazed that Gil hadn't phoned her up demanding to know how she had linked Sam to the dead girl, or warning her to stay away from him. He never had liked Sam Braun, or her connection to him.

Then again, if his ears were still ringing, perhaps he couldn't hear well enough to use the phone yet.

Sara suddenly appeared uncomfortable with the conversation and buried her gaze in her lap, where it remained until Catherine swung the car into a space at the lab parking lot. Seconds later, another car followed them in and came to a squealing stop two spaces down from them.

"I'd better go help Warrick unload the evidence." Sara said awkwardly, opening the car door and swinging one leg out. Catherine nodded, a spark of regret flashing across her face at having let the conversation get away from her before they made it back.

Realising that she was about to lose her opportunity, she suddenly reached over and caught the brunette's sleeve before she could get out of the car.

"Hey, whatever it is you need to tell Gil ... you know that I'm always here, right? I mean, if there's anything I can do, in his absence..."

Sara smiled tightly and nodded.

"I know, thanks." She cleared her throat, staring at her arm until Catherine realised that she wasn't about to 'fess up to anything right now. Frowning sadly, she released her sleeve, allowing Sara to climb out of the car.

However, the younger woman paused before she walked away.

"Hey Cat," she called softly towards her colleague, who remained in the driver's seat. "He may be your father, but what he did is no reflection on you."

By the time Catherine could formulate any kind of response, Sara was already gone and she could hear distant conversation as the brunette began helping Warrick with the boxes of evidence.

Still, she found a small smile creeping onto her face as the words registered in her mind and settled themselves on her increasingly delicate conscious.

x X x

Hours later, she still couldn't decide whether her conversation with the brunette had gone well or not.

Perhaps it had been too ambitious to expect Sara to just do a one-eighty and trust her right off the bat. She hadn't seemed to even consider the idea of telling Catherine whatever it was she apparently needed Gil's help with.

But then she had, in her own awkward Sara Sidle sort of way, offered her support for Catherine in relation to her Sam problem.

And somehow she had honed in on something that even Catherine hadn't really considered until now. Did it bother her that she had a murderer's genes coursing through her blood? Yes, it did. But, as Sara had rightly pointed out, that didn't make her any less of a good person. And Sara should know – she, too, was the daughter of a murderer.

Catherine hadn't even realised it at the time, but her confession actually served two purposes: it showed Sara that she trusted her, but it also highlighted something they had in common.

So, was it a success? Not really, but it wasn't exactly a failure either.

She was so preoccupied mulling this over that she didn't hear his soft approach or his calm satin-voiced greeting. In fact, the first time she realised that she wasn't alone was when the cup of steaming coffee appeared under her face.

"Oh." She squeaked, looking up into Warrick's absorbing green eyes.

"You looked like you need that." He observed, taking a seat beside her on the bench. She smiled gratefully, wrapping her hands around the drink and letting the warmth seep into her skin.

She had come outside to clear her head, but all she had succeeded in doing so far was making herself cold.

"Thank you." She mumbled, raising the mug to her lips and taking a long sip.

They remained for a long moment in contemplative silence, their breath mingling in the cool air. It was still early and the sun had yet to make an appearance over the desert horizon. Of course, it never really got dark in Las Vegas, with The Strip glistening like a giant Christmas tree and casting beams of light into the sky that masked even the brightest of stars. But out here on the edge of the city, with your back to the glitz and glitter of Downtown Vegas, you could almost pretend you were out in the wild, with just the gentle breeze and your own thoughts for company.

Apart from the constant wailing of sirens and frenetic beeping of horns, of course. Catherine loved Las Vegas, most of the time; but on nights like this, she envied the people who lived out in the country, where it was quiet.

"So," Warrick exhaled calmly at last. "Are you going to tell me?"

"Tell you what?" She whipped her head around, a puzzled expression replacing her thoughtful frown.

"What's been eating you the last couple of days?"

She chuckled softly, shaking her head. She never could hide anything from him.

"It's ... nothing." She lied. "Just something I need to work through."

"Something like..." he pressed, giving her a gentle nudge. "You know you can always talk to me, right?"

"Not about this." She sucked in a breath and felt the cold air against the back of her throat.

Warrick scowled, placing a hand on her knee and leaving it there, waiting for her to open up. He had known her long enough by now to know that she _wanted_ to tell him, even if she didn't _want_ to want to tell him.

"You know how hard it is to convince Grissom to take time off." She began randomly after a moment of pensive silence. "I promised him that I would look after the team in his absence."

"Yeah, so, you're doing a great job."

She choked out a bitter laugh, shaking her head.

"Yeah, sure. Nick's been in a mood with me all week and Sara ..."

"What?" He frowned when she trailed off.

"You know what, it's nothing, just forget I said anything." She quickly amended, realising too late that she had offered up too much.

"Hey, you're doing a great job with the team." He insisted, squeezing her leg gently. He knew that Nick was being a pain in the ass, although it was news to him that Catherine and Sara had had a row as well. If anything, they had appeared to be getting along swimmingly at the moment.

"Yeah, maybe." She mumbled. "Then there's Sam..."

"Yeah, I guess that's rough." He nodded. "I know you were tight with him, it must be hard to learn that he's a murderer."

"It hasn't been the highlight of my year." She mused sadly. "And that's saying something, given the year I've had! Between losing Eddie and blowing up the lab ... I just thought that this would be a good chance to redeem myself, you know? Show everyone that I can still be trusted."

He shook his head in confusion, not that she could blame him for misunderstanding her guilt. He didn't know that she had used the DNA lab to prove her own paternity, or that it could sink a murder case. And he didn't know that she had used her position on a case to pry into a colleague's private life.

"Hey, Grissom would be stuck without you. Even when he's here, you're always cleaning up after him." Warrick insisted. "Face it, without you, he'd never get his personnel evaluations in on time!"

"Yeah." She straightened up and released a breath. "Yeah, I guess you're right..."

x X x

If Warrick had been perplexed by her mood before, he was probably downright baffled now, as she had hurriedly thanked him for his pep-talk and scampered back inside. But something he said had struck a chord with her.

Which is why, for the second time in as many days, she found herself rifling through Grissom's filing cabinet, muttering absently to herself as she did so.

"Hey Cath,"

"Jesus Nicky," she spun around, grabbing her chest in surprise. "Don't sneak up on me like that."

"Oh, sorry." Nick gestured to the door. "I knocked, but I guess you didn't hear ..."

"No, it's fine." She lied, hurriedly composing herself. "What can I do for you?"

"Uh, nothing. I just wanted to give you this; it's the trace report on my 420."

"Oh, yeah, thank you." She smiled, accepting the folder. "Hey, good job on that one."

"Yeah, thanks." He shrugged, not quite feeling the compliment. "Hey Cath, why are you throwing me a soft ball?"

"What are you talking about?" She frowned.

"A neighbour dispute gone bad? The guy had already signed his confession before I even got to the scene. What's with the kid gloves?"

"Hey, I thought you'd be pleased – going solo, and with a dead body."

"Yeah, right." He rolled his eyes. "I'm processing a scene that won't even make it into a courtroom, while you guys are working the hot case of the night."

"Hey Nick," Catherine rested her hands on the desk, meeting his eyes. "Every case is a hot case to the victim's family. You can't just hold out for the high profile ones. You helped get justice for them today; be proud of that."

The Texan offered a tight smile which suggested that he wasn't really absorbing her point.

"Right, okay." He nodded, taking a step back. "Have a good day, Catherine."

"Hey, Nick..." She called after him, but he'd already vanished back into the hall. Throwing an exasperated hand out, she quickly decided that she didn't have the energy to deal with him right now and resumed her search.

Extracting Sara's personnel file once again from the cabinet, she flicked towards the back, where Grissom kept a copy of the personnel evaluations.

Something about it hadn't seemed right last time she'd read it, when she was looking to see if Grissom had reported any welfare concerns, but she had been so focussed on her task at hand that it hadn't registered with her at the time.

And there it was. Or rather, there is wasn't.

Grissom hadn't completed Sara's most recent evaluation. As Warrick had pointed out, Catherine always chased him to submit hers on time, because she knew that she wouldn't get her cost-of-living adjustment until he did. Delving back into the filing cabinet, she pulled out Nick's and Warrick's files and checked theirs too. Unlike Sara's, Gil had managed to complete their evaluations on time. Barely, but he had.

She contemplated this for a moment, tapping her fingers on the desk. Gil could be lax at times when it came to completing his paperwork, but this was quite a serious oversight – and one that should have been picked up sooner. The lab director, Robert Cavallo, needed to sign off on all staff evaluations before he could approve the adjustments. If Grissom hadn't realised his mistake, than Bob should have.

However, as big an error as it was, it was one that Catherine could rectify with relative ease.

Snatching a pen off the desk, she placed the incomplete evaluation on the desk and began to fill in the empty boxes. Gil had already completed the interview, so it was just his opinion of Sara's work and any suggested improvements that needed completing.

Well, Catherine worked with Sara too and she was just as capable as Gil – if not more so – of providing an objective assessment of the young brunette's work.


	10. Chapter 10

"What?"

The gruff voice from inside did not deter her and she sauntered into the office, plastering her most alluring smile on her face. When he didn't look up, she cleared her throat softly.

"Bob?"

"Catherine." He raised his eyes slowly to meets hers and offered a tight smile. "What can I do for you?"

Robert Cavallo had never been particularly fond of Grissom – or Brass, when he was running the night shift – but, being a good ol' Vegas boy himself, he had always had a soft spot for Catherine. Unfortunately, that had soured somewhat when she blew up his DNA lab. And given the fact that the Sam Braun murder case could fall through any day as a result of her misuse of that same DNA lab, now might not be the best time for her to be asking a favour of the surly Lab Director.

Still, Catherine was an optimist. And she had a plan. Cavallo might be annoyed at her _right now_ , but he was _always_ annoyed at Grissom – not in the least, when he failed to submit his paperwork on time...

"Well," she drawled, ambling towards his desk. "As you know, Grissom's taken some time off and I've been covering for him in the interim."

"You've been covering for him for longer than that." He quipped with a wry smile, which she gratefully returned. He may be grumpy, but he was still in the mood for a joke – that bode well for her.

"Well, I was sorting out some of his paperwork – you know what a mess his desk is – and I found something that I'm hoping you can help with." She paused, licking her lips. "As you know, staff evaluations were due in a couple of months ago and it seems that Grissom never submitted Sara Sidle's."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Bob rolled his eyes, which was exactly the reaction she was hoping for. "I'll chase it up with him when he gets back."

"Oh, there's no need." She produced the sheath of papers she was holding behind her back, neatly stapled together, and offered it out to him with a smile. "I took the liberty of finishing it for him."

"See, always covering for him." He huffed, accepting the papers and tossing them onto his already-overflowing in-tray. "I'll get it filed."

Having assumed that the conversation was over, he was surprised when the blonde continued to loiter in his office with one eyebrow raised in anticipation.

"What there something else?" He queried, impatience beginning to creep back into his voice.

"Yes, actually." She flexed her hands. "Sara's cost of living adjustment will have been delayed because of this."

Cavallo sucked in a frustrated breath and she bit her lip, hoping that he would play ball.

"You're right." He exhaled, and she also released the breath she hadn't realised she was holding. "I'll speak to Payroll and make sure it gets backdated."

Clamping down on her delight at her success, she offered a simple appreciative nod.

"Thank you, Bob." She said professionally, already backing out of the office. "I knew I could count on you."

"Hey," he called after her retreating form, "when Gil comes back, tell him I want to see him about this."

She turned in the threshold, throwing a casual smile over her shoulder.

"He'll be delighted."

Outside, she let her relief show and practically sashayed down the hall, satisfied with her good deed. Alright, so maybe she had thrown Gil under the bus, but hopefully it would be worth it.

x X x

Thankfully, she wasn't the only one working late this morning. She thought that Sara might have gone home already by the time she left Bob's office, but evidently luck was on her side today.

"Hey," She greeted upon finding her colleague in the locker room.

"Hey," Sara echoed, not even glancing up from lacing her boots. Catherine pushed herself off the doorframe and walked into the room. As she ambled behind the bench, she extended a hand and lazily dragged it across the back of Sara's shoulders, causing the brunette to still.

"Do me a favour," she began cryptically. "Check your paycheque this month."

Sara turned, following her movements through suspicious eyes.

"Why?"

"You were due a cost of living adjustment a couple of months back," Cath explained, completing a circle of the bench and coming to rest in front of her colleague, where she leant casually against the lockers. "But Grissom forgot to submit your evaluation, so you never got it."

"Oh, right." Sara frowned, straightening up. "I hadn't even realised."

"I've asked Cavallo to speak to Payroll and get it backdated for you." Catherine continued, keeping her voice as neutral as she could. "So you shouldn't lose out."

As she was speaking, she could see something clouding over Sara's face that she couldn't quite read but that she chose to believe was gratitude.

"Thank you." Sara said softly at last. Catherine shrugged, averting her gaze. It wasn't exactly in her nature to be bashful, but she suddenly felt an unexpected blush creeping up her cheeks.

"Grissom should have picked up on it sooner." She cleared her throat, squaring her shoulders. "If it isn't on your paycheque, let me know and I'll chase it up."

"Thanks, Catherine." Sara said again, her own cheeks turning a distinctive shade of pink. "I appreciate that."

With a small smile and a nod, Catherine made to leave. Although she didn't quite know what made her do it, she reached out again and let her hand graze the younger woman's arm for a second time in as many minutes.

x X x

When Catherine had finally arrived home to find not only her daughter and mother making a mess of her kitchen, but her sister sat drinking her special coffee, she had been mildly irritated.

When Lily and Nancy blithely invited themselves to stick around for brunch, her irritation had turned into downright annoyance.

"Don't you have homes of your own to go to?" She asked with a disgruntled huff.

"I'm sorry." Lily said without a hint of apology in her voice. "I didn't realise it was a crime to want to spend time with my granddaughter."

Lindsey beamed up at her around a mouthful of pancake, which was hardly helping Catherine's case.

"You've been babysitting all night." She pointed out, lazily extending a hand and attempting to run it through Lindsey's hair. The child leant away from her mothering touch with a sullen scowl, before shovelling another forkful of food into her mouth.

Dropping her hand back onto the table in resignation, Cath turned to Nancy instead.

"What's your excuse?"

"I figured out where you keep your good coffee." Nancy smirked playfully, taking a swig from her mug. Catherine rolled her eyes. She was tired and she had been looking forward to a quiet Saturday at home with her daughter. _Only_ her daughter.

"So," Nancy continued when Catherine didn't rise to her joke. "How goes Operation Sara?"

Shooting her sister a derisive look, Cath swung out a leg under the table and landed it squarely against her shin.

"Ow." Nancy yelped with a dark scowl.

"What's this about Sara?" Lily asked, placing a plate on table and taking a seat between her two daughters.

"It's nothing, mom." Catherine said tightly, silently warning her sister to keep her mouth shut.

"Catherine _accidentally_ found out that Sara's in therapy." The younger sister explained, blatantly ignoring the rebuke. "And she's trying to get her to 'fess up about it so she can help her without admitting what she did."

"Thanks Nancy." Catherine drawled sarcastically, resting an elbow on the table and using it to prop her head up.

"Why, what did you do?" Lily pressed, taking a bite of her food.

"Nothing." She repeated sulkily.

"She stole her counselling file."

"Nancy!"

"What?" The younger sister shrugged, swinging her legs around to the side of her chair lest she get kicked again. "I told you that you're playing with fire."

"Catherine, you didn't really do that, did you?" Lily asked, putting her fork down and fixing her eldest child with a shocked expression.

"I ..." she stopped and sighed, casting her eyes sadly over Lindsey, who was watching this conversation bounce around the table like it was a game that she didn't quite understand the rules of. She'd really rather her child didn't hear this; but it was clearly too late for that. "I didn't steal it. I came across it during an investigation involving her counsellor and ..."

"And you read it." Nancy finished for her when she trailed off. "All of it."

"Yes, thank you Nancy." Catherine spat. "I think you've said enough."

"If you get caught, you're going to be in serious trouble – and God knows you don't need any more of that right now."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" The CSI snapped back, feeling her heckles rising.

"You blew up the lab, injured two of your colleagues in the process – including Sara – and then you used your DNA lab to prove your own paternity. I'd say intentionally breaching a colleague's privacy is a third strike."

"Nancy's right, Catherine." Lily picked up the lecture where Nancy left off. "If Sara finds out what you've done, she'd have every right to make a formal complaint."

"Well thank you both for your expertise." Catherine rolled her eyes. "It was never my intention to hurt Sara – I want to help her. Maybe I haven't gone about it in quite the right way, but I'm trying to fix that."

"I told you, stay out of it." Nancy reminded her.

"I can't do that." Catherine took a deep breath. "Not now that I know what she's going through. I need to do something."

"So, what are you doing?" Lily pressed, resuming eating her brunch. "How are you going to 'fix it'?"

Catherine pursed her lips, resting her head morosely in her hands.

"I'm still working on that."

"Why don't you make her a card?" Lindsey piped up at last, drawing all eyes to her.

"What?" Catherine asked.

"If you've hurt Sara, why don't you make her a card to say sorry?" Lindsey repeated, as if it were that simple. Catherine smiled, reaching out and stroking her hair softly. Sometimes, in spite of everything that had happened in Lindsey's life in the last few months, she could still see a little sparkle of innocence in her baby blue eyes.

"Oh, honey. I don't think it's that easy." She explained sadly.

"No." Nancy agreed calmly, taking another long sip of her coffee. "Because you're not sorry, are you?"


	11. Chapter 11

Catherine had elected not to answer Nancy's question; but it didn't mean she hadn't been thinking about it. Was she sorry?

Was she sorry that she had hurt Sara and that she had potentially irreparably damaged their friendship? Of course.

Was she sorry that she finally had some understanding of what made her enigmatic young colleague tick? No.

After her delightfully stressful visit from her mother and sister and an equally uncomfortable conversation with Lily before work, Catherine was in no mood for her team to act up tonight.

So, in an attempt to pre-empt any tensions, she put Nick on the main case with herself and Sara, sending Warrick off to play by himself for the evening.

However, if she thought that was going to make her night easier, she was sorely mistaken.

Before they had even exited the car, she knew it was going to be a difficult case.

Two officers were attempting to man-handle a middle-aged woman in handcuffs from the house towards a police car, despite her ardent objections. Hitching up his pants, Nick turned to his colleagues.

"I got this." He assured them, before striding over towards the officers. "Hey boys, what do we have?"

"She was found in the house, near the body." One of them explained, struggling to hold onto the woman. "She was talking nonsense, she's clearly on something. We're going to take her to the station for processing."

"Please, I just want to go home." The lady asked in a pitifully weak voice, her frantic gaze flicking between all three men. "Can ... can I go home?"

"No, no I'm afraid not." Nick said coolly. "Your home is a crime scene. Now, we're going to need you to go with these officers, they're going to take you to the station and ask you some questions..."

"But ... but it's my home. I want to go home." She continued, trying to step backwards out of their strong grip, the chains around her wrists jangling together.

"Ma'am, I'm telling you that's not going to happen." Nick snapped impatiently. "Now, you need to go with these officers."

"Please..." She was practically in tears by now, her pinpoint pupils dancing. Nick narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Ma'am, have you taken anything this evening?" He whipped out his torch, shining it in her eyes and causing her to pull violently away from him. "Ma'am, ma'am!" He raised his voice sternly as she struggled away from his piercing torchlight.

Suddenly, she lunged forward and grabbed his arm tightly with both hands, sinking her nails into his skin.

"Please, I just want to go home."

Catherine and Sara, by now, had unloaded their kits from the car and had been making their way towards the house, passing the commotion. They both saw the woman's movement and Nick's sharp reaction, as he instinctively reached for his weapon.

However, to both his and Catherine's surprise, Sara dropped her kit and ran over, grabbing his wrist before he could un-holster the gun.

"Nick, don't." She said firmly. Placing her hands over the woman's, she softened her voice, choosing her words slowly and carefully.

"Hey, it's okay. Nobody's going to hurt you." She reassured her. "But I need you to do something for me. Can you do that?"

The woman's frantic gaze settled on Sara's face, seemingly searching it for any kind of threat. Not finding it, she nodded tearfully, quiet whimpers finding their way from her throat.

"Okay, I need you to let go of Nick's arm." Sara said, carefully interlocking her fingers with the woman's and prising her off. As she released the Texan, he stepped back, allowing Sara to move directly into her line of sight and keep hold of her hands. "Okay, that's good."

The two officers still had a vice grip on her arms and Sara turned her attention to them, ensuring that she kept her voice calm despite the angry clearly bubbling beneath the surface.

"Can you let go of her please, and remove the cuffs. She's not going to hurt anyone."

The officers looked past Sara to Catherine, who had moved close enough to hear what was being said and was watching the exchange with intrigue. Catherine caught their eye and nodded, forcing them, reluctantly, to release the woman from her constraints. Suddenly free, the woman visibly relaxed.

"Can I go home now?" She asked hopefully, still clinging to Sara's hands.

"I'm afraid not." The CSI explained gently. "We need to do some work in your house before you can go back inside. But we're going to take you somewhere safe in the meantime, okay?"

The woman appeared to be appraising the offer.

"O...okay." She stuttered at last.

"Okay, thank you." Sara smiled encouragingly. "That's good. Don't worry, we're going to take good care of you."

Turning her attention back to the officers, Sara addressed them firmly, making it clear with the tone of her voice that if they put handcuffs back on her then it would come back to bite them.

"Gentlemen, will you please give this lady a ride to the station and get her something warm to drink."

Wisely keeping their hands to themselves this time, the officers led the woman to the police car.

"Hey Sara," Cath said, stepping up beside the brunette and handing her the kit she had discarded earlier. "Why don't you accompany her to the station and process her? You can head back here when you're done."

"Okay." Sara agreed without complaint, returning to the CSI Denali they had travelled in together to follow the police car back to the station.

As the scene cleared of people, Nick returned to Catherine's side. He, too, had been watching the proceedings in bafflement.

"What the hell was that?" He asked, scratching his head. Catherine didn't know and even if she did, she wasn't about to answer the question. Instead, she turned to Nick with a mask of professionalism concealing her own curiosity.

"Start taking overalls and sketching the scene, then take the perimeter." She instructed coolly. "When Sara gets back, she can help me inside the house."

x X x

The scene hadn't taken as long as they had expected, partly due to the fact that the house was ridiculously neat.

The body, a male identified as the woman's husband, had been found on the floor in the lounge, a dent in his forehead the size of Texas and a knife underneath him, submerged in a pool of his blood.

Upon returning to the scene, having processed the significantly calmer Mrs Cooper, Sara had posited that the stabbing could have been accidental – that he had collapsed, hitting his head on the counter and impaling himself on the knife as he fell.

It was a theory which was immediately discounted by Nick, who insisted that the woman had stabbed her husband to death.

And Catherine's grand plan of having a peaceful shift promptly went down in flames. Suddenly, she was wishing that she had kept Warrick and sent Nick off to play by himself.

Nick's mood, offset by the altercation with Mrs Cooper and further incensed by Sara's unscientific opinion that the woman was 'not violent enough' to have killed her husband, did nothing to improve the situation.

Back at the lab, Catherine had immediately separated the two, sending Nick to disseminate the evidence to the various lab techs and requesting Sara to commandeer the layout room and print out the crime scene photos, while she visited Doc Robbins and the late Mr Cooper in the morgue for a preliminary assessment.

But, alas, she couldn't keep them apart forever, and by early morning, the three of them had reconvened in the layout room, where Sara had pinned the scene photos up on the board.

"Okay, so until we get the post mortem results, we can assume that Mr Cooper either died from the head injury of the stab wound." Catherine began.

"I talked to Mandy, she couldn't get any prints off the knife; it was completely covered in the victim's blood."

"Well, I don't think we _need_ prints to know who was holding it." Nick sniped.

"We don't know that, yet." Sara retorted.

"You saw how she reacted at the scene – it wouldn't take much to set her off!"

"Alright guys," Catherine jumped in, clearly not impressed at the prospect of playing mediator. "So far, we don't know that either of them was holding the knife. What did the responding officer have to say?"

"They found Mrs Cooper washing the dishes, right there next to her husband's body." Nick almost laughed. "I mean, what more do you need?"

"Right." Catherine frowned, tapping her fingers on the bench in thought. "She wasn't trying to hide the body, or dispose of it...?"

"No, they said she was acting like it wasn't even there."

"She disassociated from the situation." Sara explained. "She's displaying all the signs of suffering from a personality disorder. Sometimes a traumatic event can cause people to shut down – they can't cope with what they're seeing, so their mind just doesn't let them see it. Finding her husband on the floor in a pool of blood would be enough to trigger that kind of episode."

"Yeah, or maybe she was so traumatised by what she had _done_ that she blocked it out." Nick hypothesized.

"Sara, you processed her – did you find any evidence of blood on her clothes?" Catherine interjected.

"No, nothing." Sara stated. "I did find skin under her fingernails, Greg's running DNA."

"Doc Robbins found scratches on both the victim's arms." Cath noted.

"Alright, let's run this." Nick said. "The vic and his wife are having an argument, she's got the knife in her hand – maybe she's cleaning up after dinner. She grabs hold of him, scratching his arms..."

"Wait, how could she scratch both his arms if she's got the knife in one of her hands?" Sara argued.

"Alright," Nick took the bait. "So, she's grabbed him and scratched him, then picked up the knife. The get into it and she stabs him, causing him to fall and hit his head on the counter."

"Why did he fall?" Sara pressed. "When people get stabbed in the abdomen, they don't just collapse forward like that. He might have sank to his knees, or stumbled..."

"Look, whatever happened, there were two people in that house and one ended up dead. That leaves us with one suspect."

"Not necessarily, Nick. The wife's behaviour doesn't gel with her being violent."

"Oh yeah?" He held up his arm, showing an angry bruise punctuated by several tiny nail indents where she had grabbed him.

"She was distressed, being forcibly dragged from her house in handcuffs and you were shining a light in her eyes." Sara pointed out through gritted teeth. "She was acting in defence, not aggression."

"No, no she was high or bi-polar or something; and she killed her husband."

"She wasn't high, and she's not bi-polar." Sara countered. "My guess is she suffers from a disassociate disorder. She's sick, but that doesn't mean she's violent."

"Doesn't mean she didn't kill her husband, either."

"Why, because all mentally ill people are killers?" Sara countered, her jaw set.

"Okay, I think we're getting away from the evidence here," Catherine held up her hands, having had enough of watching the two scrap and concerned as to where Sara might be going with this.

"No, I'm not saying all mentally ill people are killers," Nick countered, ignoring the blonde. "But you can't deny the stats – a lot of murders occur as a result of mental health. Maybe she was off her meds, or on the wrong meds, I don't know, but I do know a killer when I see one..."

Sara scoffed, tossing the photo she had been holding onto the table and holding her hands up.

"You know what, I can't listen to this." She mumbled, stalking out of the room while shaking her head.

"Oh, come on." Nick choked out a dry laugh.

"Nick." Catherine snapped, her patience with the young man waning.

"What?" He snapped back, waving a hand in the general direction that Sara had disappeared. "Come on, Catherine – you're not seriously buying this? She's clearly guilty!"

"Because that's what the evidence says?" She challenged calmly, gathering up her notes. "Or because that's what you want it to say?"

"Cath,"

"No, I'm sorry Nicky. You're jumping the gun." She shrugged.

"Me? What about Sara? Something about this woman and her _illness_ has got her completely blinded!"

"It's called compassion, Nick." She turned to follow Sara out of the room, pausing in the threshold to offer a final shot in his direction. "You could try it sometime."

x X x

She had considered tracking Sara down straight away, but stopped herself. Something about this case had the girl rattled and Cath suspected that she needed some time to decompress before talking about it.

Still, Catherine wasn't above using Sara's fight with Nick to her own advantage. So, leaving her colleagues to stew, she took half an hour of personal time and headed out of the lab parking lot with a contemplative frown on her face. She returned 30 minutes later with a smile in its place.

Thankfully, it didn't take long to find Sara, who had removed herself to one of the quieter labs and was poring over the crime scene photos by herself. Since Nick was still camped out in the layout room, Cath figured she must have printed herself another set.

"Hey." She greeted coolly, gaining her attention.

Sara emitted a dry laugh and quickly held up her hands.

"Look, before you say anything, I'm sorry for losing it ..." She began, keeping her eyes averted from Catherine's gaze.

"Don't." Cath cut her off, ambling into the room. "I agree with you."

Sara stopped mid-ramble and finally met her eye.

"You do?"

"Yeah," She exhaled, stepping further into the room. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not convinced that she didn't stab him; but I don't believe she intentionally killed him. I'm not convinced she has the capability of demonstrating that level of violence."

"She doesn't." Sara shook her head firmly, going back to the case photos in front of her. "I just wish that Nick could understand that her condition doesn't automatically make her a killer."

"So, let's find a way to prove it." Catherine stepped up to the bench and slid something into Sara's line of sight.

Sara stilled, her gaze moving from the photos, to the veggie burger in front of her, to Catherine's optimistic raised eyebrow. As her lips twitched into a smile, Cath felt a pang of success and took a seat next to her, producing a box of fries to share and tearing into the paper around her own burger.

She could feel Sara staring at her for a moment, seemingly perplexed by this sudden show of kindness. Eventually, she opened her food and tore off a piece of the bread bun to nibble on.

"Okay." Catherine said, taking a fry and chewing on it pensively. "So, what do we know about this couple?"

"Brass talked to the neighbours. They said that they were a quiet couple, kept to themselves. No call outs for domestic violence, but the people next door did say that they occasionally heard raised voices."

"Male or female?"

"Both." Sara explained. "But apparently it would always die down after a few minutes."

"Okay, and we know that she was found in the house, acting as if she couldn't even see her husband's body."

"She was dissociative." Sara repeated. "Brass is going to subpoena her medical records in the morning, but there's obviously an underlying mental health condition at play here."

Cath took a bite of her food and used the moment to scrutinise her young colleague.

"You were very good with her." She noted softly at last, drawing a small shrug from the other woman.

"It's not hard. All she wants is to be treated with respect, like anyone else."

Catherine nodded silently, chewing on her burger and leaving the ball in Sara's court. After a long moment, her patience paid off.

"My mother ... she's not well." Sara explained awkwardly. "She can lash out sometimes, but it's easy enough to calm her down, if you know the right way to deal with her."

"Well, you certainly seem to know what you're doing." Cath smiled, trying to fight down on the sudden glee at Sara's quiet confession.

"Yeah." She breathed. "I just wish I knew how to prove her innocence."

Cath pursed her lips, extending a tentative hand across the table and placing it over Sara's.

"Do what you always do: follow the evidence."

Sara didn't respond. She was staring at their hands, seemingly not quite sure how to react. Catherine began to feel uncomfortable when she appeared to have checked out of the conversation and was about to speak again to fill the silence, when Sara suddenly wrenched her hand back and stood up, scampering wordlessly to the door.

"Sara?" Cath called after her, but she was already gone. Sinking back into her seat, Catherine frowned. She hadn't meant to startle the girl; it was merely intended as an act of comfort.

Before she could decide what to do next, Sara was back, her eyes suddenly alive in that familiar way that meant she had figured something out. Catherine would never admit it out loud, but she loved that look.

"The bracelet." She said cryptically, holding out the bag of personal belongings that had been removed from the body before the autopsy.

"I'm sorry?" Cath queried.

"The bracelet." Sara echoed. "I noticed it on one of Nick's photos of the scene; the vic had a medical alert bracelet on."

Catherine took the bag and pulled out the bracelet. Sure enough, it had a little engraving denoting the fact that he was type-2 diabetic.

"Diabetes." She mused, turning the item over in her hands.

She was suddenly conscious of her own bracelet clamped around her wrist and realised why Sara had had this revelation. She hadn't left the room because of Catherine's touch, it was sight of her jewellery that had sparked her memory.

That made her feel better.

"Okay," she drawled, handing the bracelet back to Sara. "An overweight middle-aged man with type-2 diabetes isn't exactly unusual."

"No, but diabetes can cause people to collapse if their blood sugar gets too high or too low. When I was processing Mrs Cooper, she kept talking about dessert – she was saying that she had to get her husband dessert, because he needed it. I assumed that that was just part of her disassociation, but what if he really did need it?"

"You think he was suffering from low blood sugar?" Catherine frowned, trying to follow Sara's racing thoughts.

"If he was, that could explain why he collapsed, hitting his head on the counter."

"You could be right."

Both women turned to the door, where Doc Robbins had appeared.

"I finished the post on Mr Cooper." He explained, clicking into the room and holding out the folder to Sara. "His blood sugars were incredibly low. Less than 20mg per litre."

"Could that have caused him to lose consciousness?" Catherine asked, taking the file out of Sara's hands to read it for herself.

"Absolutely. He had unusually high levels of insulin in his system, which could cause his blood sugars to crash. That, combined with the limited food in his stomach, suggests that Sara's theory may not be far off the mark."

"And the stab wound?" Catherine asked.

"Hard to say – it occurred at a very sharp upward angle, unusual if it had occurred during a struggle. You said he was found in the kitchen, so it could be incidental, if he collapsed while holding it."

"Cause of death?"

"Easy. He bled out."

Sara turned to Catherine, a small smile twitching on her lips at her satisfaction of having called it correctly from the beginning. Cath stood up, snatching another french-fry for the road, and moved to the door. Passing Sara, she tapped the folder against the brunette's arm and shot her a playful grin.

"I think _I'd_ better share this with Nick. We don't need any more bloodshed this evening."


	12. Chapter 12

**Hope you guys are enjoying it so far. Regarding the 'funding' referenced in this chapter, I have no idea whether such things exist in California, where Sara's mother is, but I'm throwing it out there anyway. If it doesn't exist, then it should.**

 **x X x**

She knew that Catherine was joking, but she had been glad to let the blonde handle breaking the news to Nick anyway. She loved the Texan like a brother, but sometimes he could be a pain in the ass and she was in no mood for round two right now.

Instead, she called Jim to check in with Mrs Cooper at the station. She had managed to convince the surly detective to leave her in interrogation, rather than locking her in a cell, and she wanted to make sure that he had kept to his reluctant promise.

By the time she re-emerged downstairs, the sun was well and truly up and Catherine and Nick were both waiting for her in the layout room.

"I just phoned the Coopers' doctor." Cath explained, proffering a document towards her. "You were right; she has Dissociative Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder."

"I thought so." Sara nodded, her eyes scanning across the information that the doctor had faxed over.

"And Mr Cooper was diabetic, but he'd only recently been diagnosed and they were still trying to get his medication and diet sorted out."

"Yeah, which might explain why he had too much insulin in his system." Nick jumped in. He was significantly calmer than he had been earlier in the night, having apparently been put back in his box by Catherine. "If he began to feel unwell, he might have given himself some more, thinking that's what he needed."

"And by the time he realised that he actually needed glucose, it was too late." Sara added sadly.

"It was an accident." Catherine exhaled, closing the folder in front of her in a symbolic gesture. It was rare that they managed to solve a case in one night – especially a homicide.

"Yeah, compounded by his wife's illness." Nick added pointedly, crossing his arms. "If she hadn't psychologically shut down like that, she could have phoned an ambulance instead of letting him just bleed out on the floor."

"Doesn't make her a killer." Catherine asserted before Sara could launch into another attack on Nick's apparent prejudice. She turned to the brunette, who had set her jaw at Nick's comment and was clearly considering whether or not to start another argument. "Why don't you head down to the station and update her and Brass."

"Okay." Sara nodded, glad of the reprieve.

As the brunette departed, leaving him alone with Catherine, a petulant scowl crossed Nick's face, but he wisely decided to keep his mouth shut this time. She'd already torn a strip off him twice this evening.

Not that she looked like she was bracing for a fight, as her gaze had disappeared into the hall, leaving a pensive look on her face.

"Nicky, do me a favour." She said, her voice neutral. "Pack this stuff up. I got something I need to do."

"Yeah, sure." He frowned in mild concern, watching her scamper out in the same direction that Sara had vanished.

x X x

Alright, so, she hadn't _needed_ to do anything, but she had wanted to.

She rounded the corner just in time to catch the scene she had been hoping to witness.

Sara was stood at the front desk, returning Mrs Cooper's items to their rightful owner. The woman had a tight hold of Sara's arm and was energetically thanking her. Sara, for her part, had a genuine smile on her face and a warmth in her dark eyes that Catherine couldn't recall seeing for a long time.

An officer stepped up to the desk and said something to them and Catherine chuckled to herself in the realisation that Sara had evidently persuaded him to give the lady a free ride home, courtesy of the department.

Before she left, Sara reached into her back pocket and produced a card, which she handed to Mrs Cooper. The woman stared at it for a moment, before curling both hands around it protectively and slinking off with the officer.

Catherine had remained stood at a distance, so as not to encroach on the sweet moment, but she didn't need to be within ear-shot to know that Sara had written her phone number on that card.

x X x

With two days having passed since Nick and Sara's little blow-up, Catherine had been careful to pair them apart. It wasn't that she didn't trust them to be professional, but she felt that they needed some downtime to let the whole matter blow over.

Thankfully, she knew her team well enough to know how to deal with such matters – better than Grissom ever did, even if she did say so herself.

By pairing Nick with Warrick, she knew that the dark-skinned CSI would put a stop to his mate's whinging and make him accept that he had been an intolerable pain in the ass. And by letting Sara go off and play by herself, she could allow the brunette some breathing room to press the reset button on her emotions.

But tonight, she had finally risked placing them together again. So far, so good ...

There was an hour left of shift and there had been no dramas all night. She had hunkered down in Grissom's office with her paperwork, lest anything should jinx her good fortune, and was counting down the minutes until she could escape.

With any luck, she may even get out on time for once.

So, when her thoughts were interrupted by a soft tap at the door, she instinctively winced.

However, her assumption that this was someone coming to inform her that her team were rioting in the lab soon evaporated, when she looked up to see Sara peeking nervously around the door.

"Hey, you got a minute?" The brunette asked with a timid smile.

Catherine hadn't heard a peep from her all shift and now she looked like she'd rather be anywhere else but here. Cath frowned softly at her unusually edgy behaviour.

"Certainly." She put her pen down and gestured to the chair opposite. "What's up?"

Sara ambled cautiously into the room, seemingly unsure of where to put herself, before eventually deciding to remain standing for now.

"Well, you know that thing I needed to ask Grissom?"

"Yeah..." Cath nodded, dredging the conversation to mind. It had been in the car on the way back from a scene – Sara has asked how long he was going to be off, because she needed to talk to him about something.

"Since he's not here, and we don't know when he'll be back, I wondered if, maybe, you could help me instead?"

Catherine tried to keep her voice level, despite the little flutter she felt in her heart at hearing those words...

... _you could help me_

"I'll certainly try." She folded her hands on the desk. "What do you need?"

Finally, Sara sat down opposite her.

"Well," she started, then stopped and took a deep breath. "I'm applying for something and I need my employers to sign off on it before I can submit the application. I could go to Cavallo, but ... I'd rather not."

It was splitting hairs, but Catherine chose to hear that Sara would rather come _to_ her.

"Okay," she frowned, her interest peaked by the peculiar request. "Can you tell me what I'm signing for, or ..."

Sara bit her lip for a second, clearly debating how much to reveal.

"It's a request for funding to help towards my mother's care." She said carefully, her voice falling soft and giving Sara an uncharacteristically vulnerable appearance. "She's ... she's in a facility in California and ..."

When the brunette trailed off, Catherine held up her hands to stop her. Clearly, this was difficult for her to admit, and probably even more so since she didn't know that Catherine was already well aware of her mother's condition and the reason that she was in a 'facility'.

"Do you have the application?" She asked, ensuring to keep her voice as non-judgemental as she could.

"At home." Sara nodded, grateful for not having to explain further. "I wasn't sure whether you'd be able to approve it, in Grissom's absence – they just need confirmation that I am actually employed here and the details of my contract – full time, permanent ..." She was rambling and she knew it, but she couldn't stop.

"It's okay, Sara." Catherine smiled warmly. "It shouldn't be a problem. Just let me know what I need to fill in and I'll get it back to you right away."

She saw Sara visibly relax and felt another burst of satisfaction at having been the cause.

"Thank you." She smiled. "I really appreciate it."

"It's no problem." Cath assured her, scrutinising her movements carefully as she stood up and headed towards the door. Near the threshold, she paused and turned back to the blonde.

"Oh, thank you for sorting my evaluation out as well. The backdated payments were on my paycheque."

Cath nodded approvingly, pursing her lips.

"Good." She hummed. "I'll let Grissom know when he's back – you can't let him get away with forgetting these things."

Sara's lips twitched into a smile at the mere thought of how that conversation was going to play out.

"Thanks Cat."

As Sara departed, significantly happier than when she'd entered, Catherine sat back and gave in to the grin fighting its way onto her lips. That was easier than she imagined. She had done something nice for Sara and now the girl understood that she could be trusted to deal with work-related problems.

All she had to do now was convince her to extend that trust to her personal life as well.

Then again, this kind of was personal. Sara had admitted that her mother was sick and receiving long-term care. Granted, she had kept some details back – details that Catherine already knew, thanks to her snooping – but she could hardly expect Sara to just blithely explain how her mother had been diagnosed with schizophrenia after murdering her husband. That was really a conversation for a more private locale.

No, this was good. This was a big step forward for them.


	13. Chapter 13

**Not 100% happy with this one.**

 **x X x**

When Catherine returned to work the following night and headed into Grissom's office, she instantly spotted the paperwork sitting neatly atop the night's assignments and smiled. Evidently, Sara was already squirreled away somewhere in the lab.

Sitting down, she glanced over the first page. It was as Sara described; a request for funding to assist with long-term care. It would appear that Sara was paying for some of her mother's care and this would allow the state of California to pick up the slack. Casting her eyes over the details that Sara had already completed, something caught her eye and she re-read it.

"Oh." She chuckled to herself softly. "You certainly kept that quiet."

Ignoring it for the time being, she skipped to the page that Sara had helpfully marked with a post-it note. There was a whole section for her employer to fill out, but it was fairly straightforward. Snatching up a pen, Catherine began to complete the details, a smile playing on her lips.

x X x

Knowing her as she did, it didn't take Catherine long to locate the elusive brunette hiding in one of the labs upstairs.

Sidling up to the bench, she dropped the completed paperwork down beside her colleague and casually leant back against the tabletop with a smirk.

"Sara _Wren_ Sidle?" She queried, her eyes dancing with amusement.

"It's not funny." Sara scowled, causing a laugh to bubble out of Catherine.

"You know, I could have sworn that you told us once that you didn't have a middle name."

"Wouldn't you if you were named after a bird?" Sara countered without missing a beat.

"Sara Wren Sidle." She turned the words over carefully in her mouth. "I like it."

"You don't have to mock me." Sara shook her head. "My parents were hippies."

"No, I'm serious. I think it's cute."

" _Cute_?" Sara echoed incredulously, finally looking up from her work.

"Yes, _cute_." Catherine nudged her playfully with her hip. "Why did they choose it, do you know?"

"My mom." Sara shrugged, suddenly going coy. "They're her favourite. She, uh, she wanted to call me Songbird, but my father refused – thank God! I guess this was a compromise."

Catherine chewed on her lower lip as she listened, greatly enjoying the pink blush that was creeping up Sara's cheeks.

"I see." She nodded at last, fighting back a laugh. Sara scowled, which only served to increase her enjoyment.

However, deciding to give the younger woman a reprieve, she straightened up and nudged the paperwork towards her.

"When you're finished up in here, come down to the break room. I'll be doing assignments in a few minutes."

Sara nodded, breathing a sigh of relief as she believed the conversation to be over.

"Thanks Catherine." She said, protectively gathering up the papers Cath had signed.

The blonde placed a hand briefly on her arm before moving to the door.

"You're welcome ... Songbird."

x X x

She was halfway towards her scene before it actually dawned on her. She hadn't really been taking any notice – too busy embarrassing her young co-worker – but it suddenly registered what case Sara had been working on.

Catherine knew that there were a couple of unsolved cases that Sara circled back to every now and then; cases that she lost sleep over and would periodically reassess on the off-chance that they'd missed something the first time around.

Grissom was aware of this too; Catherine had made a point of bringing it to his attention when she first discovered it. She had expressed concern that Sara was facing burn-out if she got too invested in too many cases.

And Grissom had done exactly what he did best where Sara was concerned. He had buried his head in the sand. Frustrated by his lack of action, Catherine had quietly kept an eye on the matter, without saying anything, and gradually came to accept that this was just something Sara needed to do. So, she left her with her handful of unsolved cases and said nothing.

Perhaps if she'd continued to monitor the situation, she would have realised that Eddie's case had found its way onto Sara's list.

Contrary to popular belief, Catherine had felt guilty about the way she treated Sara during the investigation into Eddie's death. The brunette had done her best, in spite of very little evidence and Catherine's unnecessary interference, and she had managed to get a conviction against the drug dealer and against Ed's girlfriend for abandoning Lindsey to drown in the car. Yet, Cath had still accused her of failing, when in reality there was simply nothing more to go on.

Catherine knew that Eddie was a scoundrel and there could be any number of people who wanted him dead. Hell, she ought to be thankful that Sara hadn't added her to the list of suspects! It would never be easy to solve a case like that.

But Sara was still trying. And that meant more than she could put into words.

Pushing the thought to one side as she parked up and clambered out of her car, she resolved to discuss the matter with Sara later and tried to focus on her scene for the time being.

However, apparently, life was not going to let that happen.

She hadn't even taken her kit out of the car when her cell phone trilled. Whether it was instinct or woman's intuition, she didn't know, but she just had a feeling that it was bad news...

x X x

Catherine had always exuded a certain air of authority and as she stalked through the crowd of handcuffed suspects and police officers, it was practically washing off her in waves.

"Jim!" She hollered, causing the detective to turn. "Where is she?"

It wasn't so much a question as an order and he answered it wordlessly, pointing to one of the nearby ambulances. Sara was sat on the back, an ice pack clasped to her head, while a paramedic was bandaging her left wrist. She looked dazed, but largely okay.

Catherine stalked over, her expression softening as she reached her injured subordinate.

"Hey,"

Sara looked up, taking a minute to work out who it was.

"Hi." She said at last, glancing past Catherine towards the scene. "DNA's going to be backed up with all these suspects. Where do you want me?"

Catherine frowned, shaking her head.

"I don't. You're going to the hospital to get that wrist x-rayed and then you're going home."

"But..."

Ignoring her, Catherine waved a junior officer over and he obediently scampered up to the ambulance.

"Will you transport her to the hospital please and make sure she gets her head and wrist checked out, and then take her home – _her_ home, _not_ the lab."

"Yes ma'am." The officer nodded. Sara opened her mouth to speak again, despite the fact that Catherine had completely ignored her last time, but Cath placed a finger over her lips to silence her.

"No arguments. I do not want to see you back at the lab this evening." Turning to the officer, she straightened up and squared her shoulders. "If I find her working tonight, I will hold you personally responsible."

The officer nodded meekly in understanding, practically shrinking under the glare of the stern CSI. He offered a hand out to help Sara off the back of the ambulance and she reluctantly accepted it, shooting the senior CSI a sullen scowl.

Having offloaded Sara onto the reluctant cop for the night and satisfied that she had made her point, she spun on her heel and stalked back towards Jim and the boys, who had been watching the scene from a safe distance.

"She alright?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, no thanks to you." Catherine answered without hesitating.

"Hey, Cath..." Jim started to intervene, but his attempts only served to divert her simmering anger from Nick to himself.

"What the hell were you thinking letting her go in there? CSI shouldn't have set foot in that building until LVPD had cleared it and taken all weapons."

"Sara wasn't shot." Nick clarified. "She was tackled to the ground during the riot."

"By who? Was he armed?" She demanded rhetorically. "Did anybody think to check him for a gun or a knife before he threw her to the floor and broke her wrist?"

"We didn't really have time, everything happened so fast..." Warrick started, before she brusquely cut him off.

"Exactly. You guys are _not_ cops, you do _not_ clear scenes. Cops clear scenes." She whirled back on Jim, who almost appeared to be braced for it. "And where the hell were you? This is your scene; you're supposed to have control over everybody here."

"Hey, look, the scene was in hand." He held up his hands defensively. "They were only here to print and swab the suspects and take their shoes. We weren't expecting them to instigate a riot."

"It's a far-right protest group." She barked, seemingly not caring whether the parade of suspects loitering nearby heard her or not. "The police turned up to print and swab a bunch of racists and you didn't expect there to be any problems?"

"Cath..."

"CSI do not enter scenes like this until all suspects have been searched and cleared for weapons in future, you got that?"

Spinning on her heel, she stormed back towards her car without bothering to wait for an answer.

In the awkward silence that fell in her wake, the boys shared a look that landed somewhere between shamefaced and startled, but Nick was the only one who managed to voice what they were all thinking:

"What the hell was that?"


	14. Chapter 14

After returning to her own scene, Catherine's mood had gradually tapered; although the cops working alongside her continued to give her a wide berth, just in case.

However, her new-found calm didn't last long. As she returned to the lab, she was disheartened to find Brass waiting for her in Grissom's office.

She stalled in the doorway for a moment, before sucking in a deep breath and stalking past him.

"You finished processing your protestors?" She asked coolly.

"Yeah," he cleared his throat. "We got four of them for illegal weapon possession, two for inciting hatred and one for the assault on Sara – whose wrist is _sprained_ , not broken. She wanted me to tell you that." He chuckled softly.

Catherine stared at him for a moment, before nodding curtly.

"Good."

Jim stepped closer to the blonde, holding his hands out in a peaceful gesture.

"Now, can we talk about why you went off the deep end like that?" He asked carefully. "I mean, it's not like Sara's any stranger to putting herself in harm's way."

"You dropped the ball, Jim, and one of my guys ended up in hospital because of it." She snapped brusquely, turning to walk behind her adopted desk.

"Hey, hey." He caught her arm, spinning her back around to face him. She glared at the intrusive action, shrugging him off and rounding the desk. "Come on, you know that I would never put Sara in danger. It's not that long ago that _I_ tore a strip off her for running into a scene that hadn't been cleared; but this was a different situation."

"No, it wasn't." Cath retorted. "If they were there to print and swab the suspects, then the suspects should all have been under arrest and in cuffs before my guys got anywhere near them. That's what cops do, not CSIs."

Jim narrowed his eyes, searching for something in her face.

"This isn't just about what happened at the scene, is it?" He asked knowingly. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, before sinking slowly into the chair.

"With Grissom away, I am acting supervisor; I have responsibilities to my team. I have to keep them safe, but I can't do that if you're going to let them go storming into scenes that haven't been properly secured ..."

"Okay, alright." Jim held up his hands. "But come on, it's not like I sent her into a murder scene unarmed. It was a simple DNA collection. How was I supposed to know that it was going to play out like that?"

"You're supposed to know." She stated coolly, dragging a hand through her hair. "That's why we carry out risk assessments before entering any scene."

Jim watched her for a moment as she fidgeted with something on the desk, clearly looking for something to do with her nervous hands.

"Catherine," he moved closer and rested his own on the back of a chair. "Warrick told me that you were stressing out the other day about looking after team – about Nick acting up and something to do with Sara? Is that what this is about?"

She stilled, slowly raising her eyes to meet his. Sensing the trepidation resting in the silence that hung between them, he moved to sit in the chair that he was leaning against.

"Is it Sara?" He pressed, scrutinising her from across the desk.

Catherine sighed, staring down at the mess of papers in front of her for a moment.

"She's ... she's going through some stuff at the moment." She admitted quietly. "She came to me for support a little while ago and I was so busy that I turned her away."

"Ah, so this is about guilt." He realised aloud. "What's going on with her?"

"It's ... complicated." She inhaled. "I can't really go into it. I ... I screwed up, I should have listened to her. But recently she came to me for some help with something about her mother, so I think..."

She trailed off, narrowing her eyes at the detective. Anyone else may have missed it, but she easily spotted the look that crossed his face at the mention of Sara's mother, even if it was only a fleeting twitch.

"What?" She asked. "What do you know?"

"What do you know?" He tossed it back at her, but she shook her head.

"Jim, come on. If you know something about Sara then you have to tell me."

He sat back, tilting his head towards the ceiling for a long minute, before meeting her questioning gaze again.

"I know that Sara never talks about her family." He offered at last. "And I might know a little about why that is."

"You know that she was in the system?" Catherine guessed with a raised eyebrow and judging by his lack of reaction, she wasn't far off the mark.

"I might." He replied, barely flinching. "Is that what she came to you about?"

Catherine flicked her eyes up guiltily and pursed her lips.

"No, I found that out on my own." She confessed. "She sort of doesn't know that I know about that; or a lot of other things that I found out on my own."

Jim rocked back in his chair, fixed her with a sympathetic look and said nothing. Taking a deep breath, she continued.

"I want to help her deal with it all, I just ... don't know how. I want her to open up to me; I know that she was going to. I just wish I could go back to that moment and do it all over again." She mumbled miserably, dragging her hands through her tresses.

"Catherine, this isn't your fault." He interrupted calmly, in spite of his bemusement at Catherine's unexpected little meltdown. "I know Sara's had a rough life, but she's doing okay."

Cath flicked her gaze up, locking her watery blue eyes onto his own warm orbs.

"She's cutting herself."

For the first time since entering the office, a dark look crossed the detective's face and he slowly sat forward in his chair.

"She's what?" He asked, his voice a whole octave lower than it had been.

"Albert came to see me after Sara ran out of an autopsy. I went to check in with her and I found her in the locker room. She was getting changed; she didn't know I was there. I saw ... marks, cuts on her stomach."

"What did she say about them?" He pressed. "You did ask her about them, didn't you?"

Catherine's guilty look gave her away and he scoffed quietly to himself.

"What was I supposed to say?" She asked earnestly. "Sorry for spying on you, but why are you self-harming?"

Just saying the words out loud made her stomach turn and she swallowed hard.

"That's when I did some ... research and found out what was going on. I don't know how to deal with this, Jim."

"Well, you can't ignore it."

"I know. I've been trying to keep an eye on her, keeping her close to me in the hope that she'll come and talk to me when she's ready. I figured if I keep a tight enough leash on her then I can keep her safe at least. And then _you_ went and sent her in to that scene, so she ended up in hospital!"

He held up his hands, silently indicating that he wasn't going to get into that again.

"Look, if she is hurting herself, and we don't know that she is yet, then she's obviously dealing with something that she needs immediate help with. So, help her."

Catherine looked at him pitifully, electing not to tell him that she had categorical proof that Sara was self-harming in the form of her psychiatrist's report. He was already judging her; there was no need to make it worse for herself.

"Why would she hide something like this from me?" She asked sadly instead. "Why wouldn't she come to me if she was struggling?"

Jim didn't offer an answer, not that she needed him to. She knew why.

The better question would be, why _would_ Sara have come to her for support?

x X x

After Jim left, giving Catherine a stern warning to tackle Sara's problems sooner rather than later, she chose to remain in the office for a while with her own thoughts.

Unfortunately, she knew that he was right. She had been monitoring Sara for days now, hoping she would admit what was going on, but that wasn't happening and the more time that passed, the more it was looking like Catherine would have to make the first move.

Not that she knew how to do that, without forcing Sara behind her defences. The brunette was notoriously stubborn, especially when her back was against a wall. The last thing Catherine wanted to do was make her feel like she was cornered.

She was still pondering this when a conversation in the corridor caught her attention and her head shot up.

"Hey!" She was up and out of her seat in a flash, stalking across the office to the door. "Get your butt in here!"

Sara had her back to her but Catherine could see her muscles tense at having been caught. Greg offered the girl a supportive smile, before quietly slinking back into his lab.

Reluctantly, Sara turned around to face her irate supervisor and sloped into the office.

"I could have sworn that I told you to go home." Catherine declared, folding her arms.

"I did go home." Sara stated, holding up her hands, one of which was now tightly wrapped in a stark white support bandage. She had another one taped to her forehead, where she had landed on the concrete after being tackled. "But I was bored and I knew that you'd be swamped, so..."

"Sara." Catherine shook her head to silence her excuses.

"Please, my wrist is fine; I can help." The younger woman insisted. "I can work the evidence, or I'll complete paperwork."

Catherine raised an eyebrow, dragging her eyes over Sara's body. She had changed clothes, suggesting that she had indeed gone home after leaving the hospital.

"You really must be desperate." She noted with a small smile. Sara shot her a hopeful look, nodding in agreement. "Alright, Warrick is working on evidence in the layout room, you can help him. But if you are in any pain, I want you to go home."

"I'm fine." Sara grinned, already backing out of the office before Cath could change her mind. "Thank you."

As the younger woman practically skipped down the corridor, Catherine shook her head in amusement and returned to her desk.

Truth be told, she was almost relieved that Sara was somewhere she could keep a closer eye on her. Following her conversation with Brass, it had been playing on her mind that as long as Sara was at home, Catherine had absolutely no idea what she was doing.

Or, more specifically, what she was doing to herself.

x X x

"Nick," Catherine began abruptly, striding into the break room. "I haven't received your report on the Anderson case yet."

"Hey Catherine," he acknowledged the blunt greeting with a small frown. "No, I'm still working on it."

"Well, get it done. The DA is chasing us for a copy of it."

"Yeah, I'm on it." He hummed, resuming stirring his noodles. She stared at him for a moment, waiting for him to look up. "What, right now?" He asked when she sent him an incredulous look.

"Yes, right now." She snapped, turning on her heel to leave.

"Hey, Catherine." He called out before she could waltz back into the hall. "Listen, about what happened earlier – we really didn't expect it to play out like that. One minute they were co-operating, the next they lashed out."

"Forget it Nick." She shrugged, causing his tensed shoulders to drop slightly.

"You know, I've seen Sara working with Warrick – she's fine." He continued with an encouraging nod.

"Of course she is." Catherine rolled her eyes. "She's always _fine_. It's her party line."

Nick laughed, glad to see a little humour creeping back into Catherine's mood.

Unfortunately, as soon as the moment started, it was cut short. There was a clattering in the hall and suddenly a young cop came careening around the corner and spilled into the room.

"Ms Willows." He gasped breathlessly. "Outside – it's CSI Sidle..."


	15. Chapter 15

If Catherine had been thinking straight, she would have remembered that before the cop came spilling into the break room, she had heard sirens in the PD parking lot; although that was not particularly uncommon in a police station.

She also might have realised that this young cop was the same one she had offloaded Sara onto earlier in the night.

But she wasn't concentrating on anything. She was running.

Bursting through the front doors into the parking lot, she scampered down the steps hot on the cop's heels, with Nick following suit. He hadn't said anything further, but as they ran around the outside of the crime lab towards the police station, she felt her heart rate increase at the prospect of what he was going to show them. That feeling of dread went through the roof as they rounded the corner and saw the scene.

Across the parking lot, outside the stout little building that formed the police station, two police cars were sat at angles to each other with their blue lights flashing, preventing anyone from seeing what was behind them. They had clearly been parked there for privacy, which was not helping Catherine's growing concern.

The cop came to a stop nearby and gestured between them. Catherine didn't even slow down, scampering around the nearest car, where she suddenly ground to a halt.

"Oh God!" She gasped, clasping a hand to her mouth.

Sara was laid on the ground behind her own car, unconscious and covered by a police-issue blanket. Blood was trickling from her earlier head wound, which had lost its bandage. She also had acquired a second gash across her face and her shirt was torn at the collar.

Brass was crouched down beside her, clutching her un-bandaged hand. He looked up at Catherine's arrival, shaking his head wordlessly.

Stumbling clumsily towards them, she fell inelegantly to her knees beside her colleague.

"What the hell happened?" She asked meekly, placing a hand carefully on Sara's head. She could feel where Sara's blood had matted in her hair.

"We don't know." He answered gruffly. "Officer Michaels spotted her as he was leaving the station. It looks like she was attacked at the front of her car and crawled to here before losing consciousness."

Catherine looked around the silver Toyota Prius beside her and noted that the front passenger door was open and there was blood on the silver paintwork.

"We're checking the CCTV footage and I've got a team of guys out on the street looking for anyone acting suspiciously." The detective continued.

Suddenly an ambulance screamed into the lot and came to a stop, it's blue lights flashing in sync with the police cars. Jim stood up, releasing Sara's hand.

"Hey, move these cars." He shouted at no-one in particular.

"Sara, honey." Catherine whispered, stroking her hair. "Open your eyes for me."

Suddenly two EMTs landed at her side and she was promptly ushered away while they began checking over the patient. As she stood up, she found herself stepping back into Nick's arms. Truth be told, she'd forgotten that he'd been with her.

"I'll tell Warrick." He said sombrely, squeezing her shoulders gently. "We'll process her car and the area around it, see what we can find."

She nodded absently, barely listening.

"I'm going with her." She said, her eyes never leaving Sara's pale and bloodstained face.

x X x

"What the hell happened?" Warrick asked urgently, striding to keep up with Nick's hurried pace.

"We don't know," the Texan ground out between his teeth, running his hand over his hair. "Some cop found her unconscious next to her car. Catherine's going with her to the hospital now and Jim's going to get hold of the security footage."

Warrick opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off when Greg skittered into the hall in front of them.

"What happened to Sara?" He gushed, his eyes alive. "I heard she was just taken off in an ambulance?"

"We don't know yet." Nick said, exchanging an impatient look with Warrick. "It looks like she was jumped by her car; we're going to check it out now."

"I want to help." The lab tech said keenly, continuing to block their path. Nick rolled his eyes towards Warrick, but the dark-skinned CSI appeared to consider the offer.

"Alright," he said, placing a hand on Greg's shoulder. "Go grab my kit from the locker room and meet us outside."

Greg bounded off, dancing around dawdling lab techs littering the hall. Alone again, Nick turned back to his mate.

"You head on outside, I'll meet you in a minute. There's something I need to do first."

x X x

The paramedics continued to talk between themselves as one of them continued to monitor Sara's vitals on the drive to the hospital, but Catherine couldn't hear them. She was staring at Sara's face, watching every small movement for any sign of consciousness.

So, when Sara's eyelashes began to flutter, she spotted it instantly.

"Sara?" She called, tightening her grip on her friend's hand. "Come on, Songbird, wake up for me."

The EMT immediately shined a flashlight in Sara's eyes, causing her to scrunch them closed again.

Before Catherine could even glimpse the beautiful dark orbs she was dying to see, the ambulance came to an abrupt stop and the doors were flung open; and suddenly Catherine found herself on the ground watching Sara being wheeled down the ramp and through the hospital doors.

She tried to keep up, tuning out the medical information being banded around between the EMTs and the newly arrived hospital staff.

However, as Sara was taken through another set of doors in a treatment area, Catherine found herself being stopped by a nurse, who gripped her shoulders firmly to prevent her continuing any further. So focussed was her attention on Sara, Cath didn't notice at first that it was her own sister who was restraining her.

"Catherine, stay here." Nancy said sternly, practically pushing her down into a hard plastic chair at the edge of the corridor.

As Nancy scampered off after the patient, Catherine sat and stared for a moment, before she even remembered to breathe again. Closing her eyes and letting her head fall back against the wall behind her, she slowly tried to register what had just happened in the last few minutes.

Sara had woken up. That meant she was going to be okay, right?

x X x

"Why the hell would someone attack her right outside the police station?" Nick asked, scanning his torch over the front seats of Sara's car.

"I don't know, man." Warrick sighed. "This doesn't feel like a random attack to me."

Nick stopped what he was doing for a moment and fixed his colleague with a questioning look.

"I thought she was working with you in the layout room; what was she even doing out here?"

"She came to get something from her car." He answered, swabbing some blood off the edge of the car door. "There are some hairs in this; it looks like she smacked her head off the door."

"Maybe someone used the door to hit her." Greg offered, using a borrowed torch to check under the car. Warrick nodded in agreement, putting his swab into an evidence bag.

"Do you think it's someone she knew?" Nick asked, as if Greg hadn't spoken.

"I don't know." Warrick scowled. "I'd hate to think that someone tracked her way down here just to hurt her."

"Yeah, well, someone hurt her." Nick huffed. "I don't really care why they did it."

Greg flicked his eyes up to the angsty Texan. He had heard rumours of Nick's temper, but had never personally been witness to this angry, brooding side to his usually affable friend. He opened his mouth to speak, but appeared to think better of it and instead resumed his search around the perimeter of the vehicle.

As he swept the torch beam under the car, the light glinted off something metallic.

"Hey," he called out, reaching an arm underneath the car to grasp the item. "I've got something..."

x X x

She didn't know how long she had been sat staring at the double doors at the end of the hall waiting for something to happen, but she still jumped when they swung open and Nancy emerged into the corridor.

Catherine launched herself out of her seat, her eyes alive with worry.

"How is she?" She asked, searching her sister's face for any clues. Nancy pursed her lips for a moment, before taking Catherine's arm and tugging her back down into the seats.

"She's conscious." She began calmly. "We're just sending her for a scan to make sure there's no serious damage from the head injury, but she seems to be fine."

"Okay." Catherine exhaled. "That's good. So, what aren't you telling me?"

Nancy smiled tightly. Catherine knew her well enough to recognise from the tone in her voice that there was something she was keeping back.

"She has disclosed a sexual assault."

Catherine felt her stomach sink at hearing those words. She opened and closed her mouth for a moment, trying to find something to say. The image of Sara lying behind her car flashed to the forefront of her mind. Her shirt had been torn, but Catherine couldn't recall whether the rest of her clothes were intact. She had been covered by a blanket...

"What ... what did she say?" She managed to ask at last.

"She said that he forced himself into her mouth." Nancy explained, chewing on her lower lip. "And he had a knife."

"Oh God." Catherine clawed her hands through her hair. "Have ... have you..."

"We've bagged her clothes, but we haven't carried out an SAE kit yet."

"I'll do it." Catherine shook her head, trying to make some sense of it all.

Why was Sara in the parking lot mid-shift? Why would someone attack her like this, at work of all places?

Why hadn't she just sent her home when she arrived back at work?

X x x

"Hey Cath," Greg breathed down the phone as he dashed down the corridor with an armful of evidence bags. "How is she?"

"She's okay; they're just running a couple of tests." Catherine explained to the lab rat, sucking in a deep breath as she braced herself to break the bad news to him. "There's a chance she might have been sexually assaulted."

He went quiet for a moment and she thought she'd lost him, when he spoke again, his voice suddenly unsteady.

"Nick and Warrick are just going over the evidence we found by her car. We found a knife, and some possible biological evidence, I'll test it for..." he trailed off, swallowing hard.

"Thanks. I need a favour first – can you bring my kit and a change of clothes for Sara to the hospital?"

"Yeah, of course." He said, suddenly detouring from his DNA lab towards the locker room. "I'll be right there."

Hanging up, he rounded the corner and almost bumped straight into an equally startled Grissom.


	16. Chapter 16

**I struggled to write this one for some reason. Hopefully you like nonetheless.**

 **x X x**

"There's not a lot to go on." Nick exhaled, placing his hands flat on the table.

"There's enough." Warrick countered, furrowing his brow in concentration as he looked over the photographs he had printed out of Sara's car and the area immediately surrounding it.

As they scowled in companionable silence, a shadow fell across the threshold and they both looked up, surprised to find themselves staring into unusually haggard blue eyes.

"Fill me in." Grissom declared without preamble, stepping into the room. He looked ruffled, like he'd just woken up from a nightmare.

Or, perhaps, woken up into a nightmare.

Warrick blinked at him.

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Nick called me." He explained. Warrick shot his mate a look and the Texan merely shrugged in response, not denying the accusation.

Ignoring the silent messages passing between the young men, Grissom continued.

"Greg just spoke to Catherine; Sara's having some tests done, but she's going to be okay."

"Good." Nick nodded, feeling himself relax at the news.

"She also said that Sara might have been sexually assaulted." Gil continued, although the words tasted foreign in his mouth. "So, what do we know?"

This time the glance that passed between the colleagues was one of sadness and guilt at the prospect that their friend had been abused in such a way while there were just a few hundred yards away.

"Sara and I were working on evidence in the layout room." Warrick explained, shaking the disressing thoughts away for a moment to try and focus his attention. "It's so stupid now ... We were going to put some music on. She had a CD in her car that I wanted to hear, so she went to go get it."

Clearing his throat, Nick picked up the story.

"Cath and I were in the break room, when this cop came running in and said that something had happened to her. We followed him outside, to where she was lying unconscious behind her car. Jim was already with her."

"We found blood on her car door and on the ground nearby, as well as other possible biologicals – could be semen." Warrick continued. "Greg's running it as a priority."

"Not yet he isn't." Grissom countered. "Catherine's asked him to take her kit and a change of clothes for Sara to the hospital."

As he was talking, he had picked up the evidence bag containing the knife.

"Greg found that under her car." Nick explained. I was going to get it to Mandy; she should be able to get some prints off it."

Grissom stared at the weapon for a long moment, before wordlessly handing it back to Nick and turning to walk out of the room.

Alone again, and mildly perplexed by the supervisor's apparent lack of reaction, Warrick turned to Nick and raised an eyebrow.

"You called him?"

Nick cast his gaze back to the limited evidence lying on the table before them.

"He's the boss." He stated simply. "He should be here."

x X x

Catherine opened the door and crept inside, trying not to startle the patient. In spite of her efforts, Sara's sharp eyes flashed towards her and, for a split second, Catherine saw fear run across her face.

"Hey," she smiled, gingerly approaching the bed. "You okay?"

Sara nodded mutely, although both knew that it was a lie. Catherine resisted the urge to touch her, instead perching on the edge of the bed.

"Honey, Nancy told me what you said." She began carefully. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Sara shifted stiffly, fidgeting with the blanket pooled in her lap.

"I ... I went to get something from my car. Someone...something hit me from behind. He had a knife and ..." Her breath began to hitch and Catherine slipped her hand into hers.

"Hey, it's okay honey." She reassured her softly. "Just take your time."

Sara took a deep breath in an attempt to compose herself.

"He had a knife." She began again. "He had it at my throat and ... his jeans were undone. He ... he forced himself..." she swallowed hard, tears springing to her eyes at the memory.

Catherine tightened her grip on Sara's hand.

"Will you let me process you?" She asked as delicately as she could. Sara met her gaze, searching her face for a long moment before offering a cautious nod. Catherine sent her a weak smile, patting her leg gently.

Standing up, she returned to her kit, which she had placed beside the bed, and slipped on a pair of gloves. Sara watched her, her eyes flitting nervously from Catherine's hands to her face as she gathered her necessary swabs.

"Alright honey," she said sweetly, perching on the bed again. "Won't take long."

Sara nodded, visibly stiffening up seemingly on instinct. Catherine reached out and cupped her cheek gently.

"Hey, you trust me?" She asked, her latex-covered thumb caressing the bruised skin under Sara's eye.

Sara blinked, chewing anxiously on her lower lip.

"Yes," she agreed timidly. "I trust you."

x X x

She was so busy chuntering to herself as she rifled through the filing cabinet that she didn't hear the shuffled footsteps approach. So, when she finally turned around with the folder in her hand, she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of Grissom standing behind her.

"Oh!" She gasped, clutching her chest. "What are you doing here?"

"It's my office." He pointed out, equally startled by her reaction. She looked around for a moment, as if trying to place her surroundings.

"Why are you back?" She rephrased.

"Nick called me," he explained. "He told me what happened to Sara. Is she alright?"

"She's ... she'll be fine." Catherine answered somewhat cryptically. "I just came to drop of the evidence with Greg and now I'm going back to the hospital to take her home."

"Did she tell you what happened?" He pressed, continuing to block her escape.

"Yeah." She exhaled, realising with mild frustration that she was not going to be able to leave until he had been fully appraised of the situation. "He snuck up behind her; he had a knife. He forced himself into her mouth." She swallowed around the lump in her throat, closing her eyes for a second, before continuing. "She bit him, so he slammed the car door against her head. Given her earlier head injury, it's a miracle she didn't suffer any serious damage..."

"Earlier injury?" He cut her off, the frown on his face suddenly deepening. She pursed her lips, shaking her head slowly.

"It doesn't matter. All that matters is she's okay." She insisted softly. "I'd better get back to her."

She side-stepped past him, the folder still clutched in her hand. Gil whirled around, tracking her movements as she crossed the office.

"He ... he had a knife?" He repeated, struggling to even get the words out. "He could have stabbed her."

"He could have done a lot of things." She agreed sadly, pausing by the door. "In retrospect, she got off easy. But that's not going to make the trauma any easier for her to deal with."

"No, of course not." He mumbled. "Are you sure she'll be alright on her own?"

"Oh, she won't be on her own." Catherine corrected. "I'm going to take her home with me. I want to keep an eye on her today."

"Good." He nodded absently, his gaze wandering away from her to scan his office. He had only been gone a couple of weeks, but he looked positively lost as he assessed the familiar space.

e

She remained hovering in the doorway for a second, trying to establish whether the conversation was over. When he finally turned back to her, his boyish features were marred with an indignant scowl.

"Did ... did you tidy up in here?"

Catherine rolled her eyes at the abrupt change in topic.

"I'm going back to the hospital." She stated, electing to ignore the question. "Will you be back this evening?"

"Of course." He shrugged, as if she should even have to ask. She nodded slowly, pursing her lips.

"Alright then."

He watched her go, attempting to scrutinise her long after she had disappeared from his view. There was something about her that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He had known her long enough to recognise when she was on edge about something.

Then again, Sara had been raped tonight. Maybe they were all a little on edge.

x X x

Catherine hadn't quite being telling the truth when she said that she was going straight back to the hospital. She had one errand to run first. It was the reason she had been rummaging for Sara's personnel file when Grissom had snuck up on her – she needed the brunette's address.

Unlocking the door with the key that she had stolen from Sara's bag, which she had obtained after breaking into her locker, she peered inside tentatively, as if someone else might be waiting to jump out at her.

Stepping into the apartment, she surveyed it for a moment. It was nice; oddly modern, in spite of the small size.

Sara had made good use of the limited space, making it feel homely without being cluttered. There was artwork on every wall, each piece bursting with colour.

Yet, she noted with a touch of sadness, no photos. No family snapshots. No memories.

With a sigh, Catherine moved swiftly to the dresser and began packing a few of Sara's clothes into a bag. She didn't know how long she could convince Sara to stay with her – if she could convince her at all – but she hoped that the younger woman might accept at least a couple of nights of TLC before rebuilding her defensive walls.

Opening one drawer, Cath spotted a soft sweater neatly folded in the corner. She picked it up, feeling the almost-fleece like material. She couldn't recall ever seeing Sara wear it at work; but then she wasn't packing for work, she was packing for comfort and this looked like it would be comfy. Adding it to the bag, she moved to the bathroom and packed up the essentials.

She desperately wanted to make the most of her time here, to absorb whatever information she could about Sara while she was afforded this brief glimpse into her personal space; but she knew that it would be wrong. Sara was deeply protective of her privacy and Catherine knew better than anyone why that was.

The poor girl had already been violated once this evening, and Catherine being here now was probably more of an intrusion than she would like anyway.

So, she gathered up her bag and cast a final lingering look around the apartment, attempting to commit every detail of it to her memory, before locking it back up and securing Sara's little home from prying eyes once more.


	17. Chapter 17

If Sara was bothered by the idea of Catherine rooting through her apartment unsupervised, she didn't say anything about it.

In fact, she didn't say anything at all.

Upon entering the house, she shuffled awkwardly in the lounge and cast her nervous eyes around the room. She had never been in Catherine's house before. It was more earthy than she expected from the chic woman she was used to at work, filled with warm furnishings and spattered with undisputable evidence of a child's presence.

It felt like a home. The kind of home she would read about in books as a child – the child of home she never knew existed, until she was ripped out of her own.

When Sara remained stranded in the middle of the room, seemingly uncertain of where to put herself, Catherine made the decision for her. She deposited her wordlessly on the couch and disappeared down the hall.

Abandoning Sara's bag in the spare room, she went into the bathroom and began to run a bath for her guest.

Save for whispering a shy 'thank you' upon leaving the hospital, Sara hadn't uttered a word and Catherine got the distinct impression that she did not want to discuss the evening's events.

Of course, she would have to talk about it sooner or later, but if what she needed right now was to pretend it hadn't happened, then that's what they would do – starting with getting any trace of the attacker off Sara's skin.

When she returned to the lounge a few minutes later, she found Sara still sat exactly where she had left her, staring uncomfortable around the room. The girl looked, in a word, lost.

"Hey," Catherine called softly, getting her attention. "I've drawn you a bath."

"Thank you." Sara mumbled, making no apparent effort to move.

Giving her a moment to gather herself, Cath returned to the bathroom. She was just placing a soft, clean towel beside the bath when she turned to find Sara standing in the doorway.

"Hey." She smiled, offering out a hand to encourage her inside. The brunette shuffled in nervously, her arms wrapped tightly around herself in spite of the warm steam swirling up from the bathwater and circulating around the room. Catherine watched her for a few seconds, attempting to read the multitude of emotions battling for supremacy on her worryingly-pale face.

Eventually giving up, she moved to the door.

"Do you need anything else?" She asked.

"No, thank you." Sara answered hoarsely, refusing to meet her gaze.

"Okay." Cath nodded, gesturing towards the lounge. "I'm just down the hall, if you need me."

Sara nodded bashfully, turning her back towards her. Taking it as her cue to leave, Catherine stepped into the hall and pulled the door almost closed, but left it deliberately off the latch.

x X x

Catherine started herself awake when she heard the front door slam and hurriedly checked the time, relieved to discover that she had only dozed off for a few minutes.

"Hey." Nancy gave her a cool once-over as she materialised in her line of sight. "You look like hell."

"What ... what are you doing here?" Catherine managed to ask, stiffly hauling herself off the couch. "Where's Lindsey?"

"Relax, Lindsey's fine. I took her to school like you asked." Nancy assured her. "I just stopped by on my way home to see how Sara's doing?"

"Oh." Cath nodded, taking a breath. "She's holding up, I think. She's just taking a bath."

"Alone?" Nancy frowned, causing Catherine to turn to her with a perplexed scowl.

"Of course she's alone, who else would be with her?"

"No, of course, I just meant ... is it wise to leave her alone right now?"

"She's been sexually assaulted, Nance." Catherine rolled her eyes as she led the way into kitchen. "I'm sure she feels violated enough, without me standing over her while she's in the tub!"

"Yeah I know." The nurse swallowed, leaning against the counter. "But, she does have a history of self-harm..."

Catherine winced, casting an anxious glance towards the hall. They were far enough away from the bathroom that Sara shouldn't be able to hear them, even with the door open, but that didn't mean they had to broadcast their conversation.

"She's taking a bath. After the night she's had, I think she's earned a few minutes of privacy." She continued to argue, pouring a cup of coffee. She went to pour a second, but Nancy held up her hands to stop her.

"I can't stay." She said. "I just wanted to see how she was. And to make sure you're okay?"

"Me?" Catherine raised an eyebrow, taking a sip of her drink. "I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you've been on edge about this girl for weeks and now she's in your house, under your care." Nancy pointed out. "Are you sure you can handle that?"

"What is there to handle?" Catherine pressed, bemused. "She's here so I can keep an eye on her."

"Right. Not because you feel guilty?" The nurse challenged.

"I..." Catherine began to defend herself, but stopped. "I want to make sure she's alright. You said it yourself, she shouldn't be alone right now."

"And that's very nice of you." Nancy agreed calmly, straightening up and crossing her arms. "Just don't say anything or do anything that you're going to regret. She's very vulnerable right now and she doesn't need you playing therapist just to ease your own guilty conscience."

"That is not what I'm doing."

Their tiff was interrupted by the sound of water draining and both women automatically glanced in the direction of the bathroom.

"Aren't you going to go check on her?" Nancy asked when Catherine remained in the kitchen.

"Let's give her a minute to get dressed, shall we?" The older sister rolled her eyes again.

Offering a shrug, Nancy gathered up her bag and made to leave.

"Just be careful." She warned, lowering her voice. "Like you said, she's already been violated once. Now is not the time for her to find out what you did with her therapy file."

Catherine scowled at her departing sibling, declining to offer a response.

Once she heard Nancy's car start up outside, she finally relaxed her shoulders and her gaze fell down the hallway.

The bathroom door was open, the room empty. Moving to the other side of the hall, Catherine nudged the door to the spare room and peered inside.

Sara was sat on the bed, staring into her lap. The tips of her hair were wet, causing them to curl into little ringlets at the ends of her waves. Catherine noted that she was wearing the soft sweater she had packed and smiled internally at the decision to bring it.

"Hey." She sat down next to her and wrapped an arm loosely around her waist. "Feel better?"

"Yeah." Sara said softly. "Thanks."

Catherine smiled, resisting the urge to drag her into a hug. Still feeling the need to have some physical contact with her, she swept her hair aside and stroked her cheek softly with the back of her hand.

"Can I make you something to eat? You must be starving."

"No, thank you."

It was a predictable answer, but the wrong one.

"That was a rhetorical question." Cath teased, nudging her gently with her shoulder. "Come on honey, you have to eat something. Making yourself sick won't help."

"I know." Sara said, averting her gaze. "I just ..."

"What?" Cath pressed when she left the thought hanging.

"I don't know what to do ... I want to get it out of my head, just for a while, but I can't stop thinking about it."

"I know, sweetheart." Catherine exhaled, tipping her head against Sara's. The girl smelt sweet and soft, like bubbles. It was a familiar scent, reminiscent of nights spent curled up with Lindsey, reading to her after a bath. She couldn't honestly remember the last time they had done that.

Holding Sara a little tighter, she resisted the urge to pepper a kiss on her face.

"I tell you what, why don't I make you something to eat and we'll just ... sit for a while. We don't have to talk; we can just put the TV on, find a bad movie to watch or something?"

Sara nodded, a tiny smile making its way onto her lips.

The tender moment was cut short by the distant trilling of a phone and Catherine reluctantly released her colleague.

"Come through in a few minutes." She said, wandering out in search of her cell phone.

Locating it in her bag, she was almost annoyed to see that it was Grissom, apparently checking up on them.

"Hey Gil." She breathed.

" _Hi_." He answered. She waited, refusing to drag his reason for calling out of him. _"How is she?"_ He obliged after an awkwardly long pause.

"She's alright." She answered evasively. "I was just about to make her something to eat."

" _Good_." Although she couldn't see him, she could picture the satisfied little nod he was offering and smiled to herself at the thought.

"Was that it?" She asked when he didn't speak again. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

" _She's going to have to give a statement_."

"Yeah, I know." She sank down at the kitchen table and ran a tired hand over her face. "But not right now. We'll worry about that later. She's not ready to talk about it yet."

" _She's going to have to talk about it sooner or later_." He pointed out.

"I know that, Gil." She sighed, frustrated. "But not today. Right now, she just needs to feel safe."

Safe.

She was supposed to be safe at the lab. That was the only reason Catherine had agreed to let her stay at work, in spite of her earlier injury.

Absently, she wondered whether Sara really knew what it was to feel safe. She seemed to be permanently on the defensive, even around allies.

Well, she was safe here. And Catherine would make damn sure that she knew that.

x X x

After ending the phone call, Catherine had turned the TV on and found an old 80s crime show to watch. Deciding that it was just interesting enough to keep their attention, while being mild enough to avoid causing any upset, she left it talking to itself and disappeared back into the kitchen.

When she returned a few minutes later, a bowl of pasta in one hand and a mug of hot cocoa in the other, she found Sara curled up in the corner of the couch and couldn't help the smile that crept across her face at the sight.

Placing both items carefully in Sara's hands, she dropped down beside her.

Sara stared at the drink in bemusement and although she didn't say anything, Catherine caught the look on her face.

"If you don't want the marshmallows, I can take them back." She joked playfully. Sara frowned, instinctively tightening her grip on the mug, causing Catherine to chuckle. "That's what I thought."

"Thank you." Sara murmured, placing the drink down on the coffee table to eat her food. Cath reached out to brush a stray curl out of her eyes.

"I just thought it might help. It never fails with Lindsey. I bet your mom did the same, when you were little?"

The words had already slipped out before she realised her mistake and she bit her tongue at the sad look that crossed Sara's face, cursing her own stupidity.

She knew what Sara's childhood was like, and she doubted there were a lot of hot cocoas with marshmallows involved.

Thankfully, Sara didn't respond to her slip-up, merely offering a shrug as she focussed her attention on her food.

As relieved as she was to let the subject die, Catherine found a thought creeping into her head that she couldn't quite silence and, almost against her will, she heard herself voicing another possibly ill-advised question.

"Sara, when was the last time someone else took care of you?"

The brunette lifted her gaze suspiciously, analysing the question.

"I don't know." She offered at last.

Catherine tentatively stretched an arm across the back of the couch, tangling her fingers in the curly ends of Sara's hair.

"Well, you'd better make the most of it now then." She suggested, attempting to sound light-hearted in spite of the sadness languishing in her voice. Sara smiled weakly.

"I really do appreciate this." She mumbled. "You, letting me stay here."

Feeling her heart flutter a little at the timid offer of gratitude, Catherine couldn't help herself any longer. Leaning closer, she pressed a kiss to Sara's cheek, letting her head rest against the brunette's for a moment.

"I wouldn't have you anywhere else right now."


	18. Chapter 18

**For you, Imagifictions - little Lindsey, as requested :)**

 **x X x**

Catherine had thought that having Sara under her roof would help her to relax, but sleep still didn't come easy.

More than once, she found herself getting up to check on her companion, who for the most part was sleeping blissfully. On one occasion, Catherine caught Sara mumbling to herself, a frown marring her pretty features; but with a little quiet consoling she soon calmed down and Catherine had trudged reluctantly back to her own room.

So, when she eventually woke up for good, it was no surprise that she did not feel particularly well-rested.

Wrapping herself in a bathrobe, she immediately went to check on Sara and was mildly concerned to find the spare bed made and the room empty.

"Sara?" She called, trekking through the house.

She located the brunette in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee, a bashful smile on her face.

"Hi." She cleared her throat nervously. "I didn't want to wake you."

"It's okay." Cath assured her, pouring herself a much-needed cup of caffeine and joining her at the table. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine." Sara said instinctively, causing a smile to tug at Catherine's lips.

"How are you really?"

Sara laughed softly, understanding her point behind the comment.

"I'm okay, really." She insisted, fidgeting with the mug in her hands. "I ... I appreciate you letting me stay today, but I think I ought to go home."

Catherine's face fell at her meek suggestion. Her hand darted out to grip Sara's non-bandaged wrist, as if that alone could keep her in place.

"Please don't." She begged. "Not yet, just ... just stay a little longer, until you're feeling better."

"I'm fine." Sara reiterated. "And I can't stay here forever – I'm going to have to go home sooner or later; it may as well be sooner."

Catherine put her mug down and took hold of both of Sara's hands, waiting for her young colleague to meet her gaze.

"Sara, you were raped." She said softly, watching the brunette's expression change and feeling a pang of remorse. "If there is any time in your life that it's okay to _not_ be fine, this is it."

"I'm ... I'm okay." Sara shook her head, but the argument sounded pitiful even to her own ears.

"No, you're not." Catherine countered. "You're trying to be okay. And that's normal, honey. In your shoes, I'd be doing the same thing. But eventually, you're going to break. And when you do, you'll need someone to be there. That's why you need to stay here for a while."

"I don't need a babysitter." Sara countered, mildly insulted by the insinuation.

"No, you need a friend." Catherine stood up and bent down to place a kiss into her hair. "I'm going to get dressed. Promise me you'll still be here when I come back?"

x X x

Once Catherine returned to the lounge, she found Sara pacing and suspected that the brunette was preparing to re-launch into her plea to leave.

However, before she could say a word, the front door was flung open and Lindsey careened inside.

Sara visibly flinched at the sound of the child pattering into the room. She hadn't even realised the time and was wholly unprepared to deal with the inquisitive little girl and her questions.

"Hey baby." Catherine greeted, reaching out towards her daughter. Lindsey skidded a stop before reaching her mother, her little face seeking out Sara in curiosity.

"Hi Linds," Sara greeted awkwardly, struggling to come up with an age-appropriate explanation for her presence.

"Hi." The child chirruped back. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"Yes." Catherine interjected before Sara could answer. She shot the brunette a smile, a silent indicator that she had won the battle.

Lindsey, oblivious to the look passing between the women, nodded approvingly.

"Cool."

"It's alright, honey," Nancy bellowed sarcastically into the house. "I'll bring your bag."

Catherine held out a hand, taking the school bag from her sister and ushering Lindsey down the hall towards her bedroom.

Nancy spotted Sara lurking uncertainly in the corner of the room and her gaze softened.

"Hi, how're you feeling?" She asked, casting her eyes over her. She had her arms wrapped around herself protectively, but she looked otherwise okay.

Sara appraised her for a moment, seemingly trying to place her face, before nodding slowly.

"I'm alright." She cleared her throat softly. "I was planning to go home, but I don't think I'm going to be allowed to leave."

Nancy snorted, casting a glance down the hall.

"Not if Catherine has anything to say about it." She agreed jovially. "Listen, I need to shoot off – will you tell her that I'll call her later?"

"Sure." Sara nodded, although Nancy was already halfway out of the door, shouting something in the vague direction of the bedrooms as she went.

Alone again, Sara sank onto the couch and let her head fall into her hands.

She wanted to go home. She wanted to put the whole sorry affair behind her and pretend it had never happened.

But she knew that Catherine was right. She wasn't okay, not really. And, truth be told, she was almost enjoying the blonde's attention. She never got to see this side of her – the domesticated, sweet side. At work, she was always the tough, takes-no-crap picture of strength and any sign of vulnerability was quickly hidden. Sara had glimpsed it once or twice, like when Eddie had died, but it was a rarity to see her so effortlessly unguarded like this.

Sara liked this side of her. It was the side she had been looking for when she considered opening up to her a few weeks ago.

Perhaps it wasn't too late after all.

When she lifted her head, she was startled to find Lindsey stood very close, watching her with a furrowed brow.

"Lindsey, homework." Catherine instructed abruptly, breezing through the room en route to the kitchen.

Sara watched the little girl roll her eyes at the order and obediently settle herself at the coffee table with her workbook. This felt like such a natural part of the Willows' family routine that she felt like she was intruding.

She was about to stand up and offer to help Catherine with dinner, since she was apparently staying to eat it, when Lindsey turned to her with an optimistic look plastered on her little face.

"Do you know anything about whales?"

"Whales?" Sara echoed, sinking back onto the couch. "Sure, I guess. What do you need to know?"

In response, Lindsey handed her a piece of paper.

"We have to do a project on the ocean." She explained. "But I don't know anything about it."

"Well, whales do live there." Sara smiled. "But there's a lot more to it than that."

"Can you help me?" Lindsey asked hopefully.

Sara shot a look towards the kitchen. She would feel much more comfortable helping Catherine with dinner...

But the child appeared harmless enough and Sara did like the ocean.

Sliding off the couch onto her knees, she shuffled up to the coffee table next to Lindsey.

"Okay, what do you need to do?"

x X x

Catherine hung up the phone, one hand still idly stirring the food, a satisfied smile on her face.

It hadn't taken much persuading to convince Grissom to give herself and Sara the night off. Sara was a given – Grissom didn't expect her back yet anyway and it didn't take a lot for her to persuade him that their stricken colleague really shouldn't be alone tonight.

Now, she just had to convince Sara to stay the night.

Turning the cooker down, she wandered through to the lounge and found herself faced with an undeniably adorable sight.

Sara was sat on the floor, with Lindsey curled against her shoulder, describing the Great Barrier Reef to the child, who was watching her with wide, interested eyes.

When she spotted Catherine watching them, Sara smiled bashfully.

"Mom, Sara grew up next to the ocean." Lindsey explained.

"I know she did." Catherine grinned, moving further into the room and perching on the edge of the couch. "Tomales Bay, right?"

Sara nodded, although she couldn't recall ever actually imparting that piece of knowledge to the blonde. Most of her colleagues just assumed she had been raised in San Francisco and she had never bothered to correct them.

"Are we still going to the aquarium at the weekend?"

"Sure." Cath dragged a hand through Lindsey's silky hair. "We'll go on Saturday."

Sara took the moment of distraction to extract herself from Lindsey and excused herself for a moment.

Catherine watched her disappeared down the hall, carefully planning her next move with the cagey brunette. However, her attention was quickly broken.

"Is Sara not angry with you anymore?" Lindsey asked innocently.

"Oh, honey. She's was never angry with me." Catherine smiled sweetly. "She's just ... kind of sad at the moment and I'm not really sure how to help her."

Lindsey frowned as she carried on with her work, clearly puzzling over this adult problem.

"Maybe she could come to the aquarium with us at the weekend?" She suggested at last.

Catherine chuckled at the idea of Sara tagging along on a family day out.

"I'm not sure she'd agree to that."

"Why, doesn't she like animals?"

"Oh, no, she _loves_ animals." Cath corrected. Although she probably wouldn't approve of seeing them in tanks, she noted to herself.

"So, she could come?" Lindsey persisted, her attention never deviating from her workbook. "She can help me with my project?"

Catherine didn't answer the question; she merely dropped a kiss on her daughter's head and returned to the kitchen. However, she couldn't argue that the suggestion had its merits. It would be another opportunity for her to get Sara on her own, away from the lab – a chance to show interact with her on a personal basis, rather than a work-related one.

Sara had agreed to stay with her today. She had, evidently, agreed to stay for dinner. Catherine was hoping she was stay overnight.

Perhaps she could be convinced to come to the aquarium.


	19. Chapter 19

After dinner, and much argument from the excitable little girl, Catherine managed to get Lindsey wrestled into her pyjamas and tucked up in bed.

Returning to the lounge, she collapsed onto the couch with an exhausted sigh.

"Well, that was hard work." She chuckled. "I think you've got yourself a fan."

Sara frowned in bemusement at the statement.

"I'm not really good with kids." She shifted awkwardly.

"I don't know," Catherine countered idly. "You seem to do alright with her."

Sara opened her mouth to contest the statement, but Catherine had already hauled herself back to her feet and disappeared into the kitchen.

When she returned, she had two mugs in her hands and wordlessly offered one to Sara.

"You really don't have to keep doing this." The brunette said bashfully, accepting the cup of tea.

Catherine ignored the comment, settling herself on the opposite end of the couch and tucking her legs beneath her.

"Do you have any plans this weekend?"

"No." Sara answered instinctively, before looking up suspiciously over the rim of her mug. "Why?"

Cath offered a guilty smile, realising that she couldn't trap her into agreeing that easily.

"Because I think Lindsey's decided that you're coming to the aquarium with us." She confessed. "She really is quite taken with you."

"She's taken with my knowledge of aquatic mammals." Sara pointed out. Catherine shrugged, deciding that the semantics didn't matter.

"Well, you're already better equipped than me to help with this project. And, you know, since Eddie died, her grades have gone kind of downhill. She could really do with acing this project."

Sara sighed, feeling herself being guilt-tripped into this and Catherine knew the exact moment that she broke.

"Fine." She said, pursing her lips tightly. "When?"

"Saturday afternoon." Cath beamed, patting her lightly on the leg. "We'll pick you up about 12?"

Sara felt herself smiling against her will, a silent concession to the arrangement. Catherine nudged her playfully, suitably satisfied with her success. She hadn't really expected her cagey young colleague to crack so easily, but then it was for Lindsey's benefit.

As they lapsed into silence, Catherine found her thoughts wandering, somewhat beyond her control, to how sweet Sara had been with her little girl. It was true that the brunette was not exactly comfortable around children, but she obviously had a soft spot for them, no matter how deep she tried to bury it.

She was so busy pondering the possible reasons for this that when Sara finally spoke up again, it caught her completely off guard.

"You know that case you were working on a couple of weeks ago – the explosion at the counsellor's office?" Sara asked, tugging absently on a loose thread on the sleeve of her sweater. "Did you ever close it?"

Catherine was momentarily taken aback by the question, although she realised that Sara had to know by now what had happened. The doctor had probably had to cancel or rearrange his appointments while he had his practice repaired. And it wouldn't have taken Sara long to find out who was working the case, even if Catherine had tried to keep quiet about it in her presence.

"It's still ongoing." She answered coyly, attempting to hide her surprise at the turn of conversation.

"You think it was a former patient?"

"That's the most likely suspect, but the doctor wasn't able to identify anyone he believed was responsible."

She waited to see where Sara was going with this. Did she know that Catherine had read the patient notes? The brunette appeared uneasy, clearly bordering on saying something.

Was she going to ask whether Catherine had read her file ...?

... Or, was she about to admit whatever it was she had nearly asked her a few weeks ago?

However, neither came and Sara's attention seemed to wander off somewhere into the middle distance.

"Hey," Catherine cleared her throat after a moment, not willing to lose this tenuous wavelength they'd established just yet. "While we're talking about cases, I wanted to ask you something."

"Shoot." Sara shrugged, readjusting herself on the couch.

"The other day, when I found you in the lab before shift ... you were working on Eddie's case."

Sara stilled, her eyes slowly rising to meet her companion's.

"Not working on." She amended carefully. "I was just going over it, in case..."

"Do you do that often?" Cath pressed when she trailed off. Sara shrugged.

"Once a week." She admitted. "I figure whichever one of them shot him probably ditched the gun. It has to resurface eventually."

Catherine nodded in agreement, sinking her gaze into her mug.

"I never really apologised for that." She confessed sheepishly. "I didn't make your job any easier."

Sara was watching her carefully.

"You were grieving." She offered quietly.

"Yeah." She exhaled. "But that's not an excuse. When things get tough, I tend to bury my emotions rather than dealing with them. It's why Lindsey is all over the place at the moment; it's why my mother keeps judging me. _But_ I am working on it."

Sara nodded slowly, her eyes narrowed. She wasn't used to this softer side of her supervisor.

"Easier said than done." She mumbled softly, although Catherine couldn't decide whether she was referring to Catherine, or herself.

"Yeah." She exhaled. "That's why I can't really blame Lindsey for acting out at the moment. I mean, as well as the trauma of what she went through in that car, she then has to deal with the loss of her father at such a young age – well, you'll understand that better than anyone."

It was a simple, throwaway statement, intended to draw similarities between her own family and Sara's.

It wasn't until Sara's head shot up that she realised her mistake. But by the time she realised what she had said, it was too late to take it back.

"What ... what do you mean?" Sara stammered, a multitude of emotions vying for superiority on her face. However, there was only one on Catherine's expression and Sara could clearly identify it: guilt.

"How did you know that my father died?" She challenged, her voice low.

"I ..."

As she struggled to come up with an explanation, Nancy's words fell into the forefront of her mind.

" _Now is not the time for her to find out what you did with her counsellor's file."_

Well, it may be too late for that.

 **x X x**

 **Sorry, had to burst the bubble sooner or later :(**


	20. Chapter 20

**Long chapter, for your patience :)**

 **x X x**

"How did you know that?"

She opened her mouth to speak, but she simply had no words.

"Catherine?" Sara questioned, her voice pitifully soft. "How did you know that my father was dead?"

"I ... I found out, recently." Cath managed to answer. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to say that – I never wanted to upset you."

She reached out a hand towards Sara, but the brunette pulled her arm away.

"How did you find out?" She pressed. "No one at work knows about that."

That wasn't strictly true, Catherine thought to herself. Jim knew; but she wasn't about to get into that now.

When Sara continued to stare at her suspiciously, she realised that she was going to have to bite the bullet and 'fess up, in spite of Nancy's stern warning to her.

"Okay," she exhaled, reaching out and this time managing to grip Sara's hand before she could tug it away. "When I was working on the vandalism case involving the psychologist's office, I believed that the most likely suspect was one of his patients, so he gave me redacted copies of all of his patient files."

Sara's expression faltered as her sharp mind picked up where she was going with this story.

"You read his patient files." She repeated weakly. "All of them?"

"Yeah." Cath licked her lips slowly, tightening her grip on Sara's hand. "I ... I know that you're a patient of his."

"You read my file." Sara said, seemingly more to herself. To Catherine's relief, she didn't sound angry; just hurt. "Did you know it was mine, I mean, before you read it?"

"No, I ..." Catherine stopped herself. Technically, she did know and she didn't want to lie to her friend now. "I figured it out pretty quickly. As soon as I knew it was yours, I put it down."

"So, you didn't read it?" Sara asked hopefully, visibly relaxing a little. Cath stalled, deliberating how to reply. Sara had inadvertently offered her an out – she could end her confession here, or go the whole hog and admit to her ill-fated actions.

"I wasn't going to." She continued, sounding calmer than she felt. "But someone came to see me about you – out of concern. I went to talk to you, to check that you were okay, and ..."

"And?" Sara pressed, resisting the urge to pull her hand back as her suspicions rose. Catherine bit her lower lip. She had come this far...

"You were changing in the locker room when I found you. You ... I ..." She stopped and swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. Suddenly unable to form her thoughts into coherent words, she released Sara's hand and pressed her own lightly to Sara's stomach, causing the girl to flinch. "I saw the cuts. I didn't know what to do, so I ... I went back to the office and, it was just there on the desk..."

Sara's eyes widened and she immediately stood up and moved out of her reach.

"So, you read it? You didn't think to come and talk to me first?" She demanded breathlessly.

"I wanted to; I just didn't know what to say." Catherine pleaded. "I know it was a stupid thing to do; believe me, I never set out to invade your privacy like that."

"How much did you read?" Sara asked, her voice shaky.

"Enough." Catherine answered cryptically.

"All of it?" Sara guessed. Catherine didn't answer, but her expression belayed her guilt and hurt settled on Sara's features.

"I ... I don't believe you." She gasped. "Is that why you've been so nice to me lately?"

Again, Catherine's face let her down without her having to utter a word.

"I know that you wanted to tell me something." She ventured optimistically. "I hoped that if I was there for you, showed you that I cared, that maybe you would trust me enough to open up to me."

"Trust you?" Sara echoed breathlessly. "Are you kidding me?"

"I know that I screwed up; I'm sorry ... I really thought I was acting in your best interests."

"My best interests." Sara scoffed, backing away. "You were acting in my best interests, by invading my privacy?"

"Sara, please..."

"I can't be here." The brunette mumbled, her eyes darting around herself like she was trapped in a cage. "I need to go."

Before Catherine could even register what she had said, she was halfway out of the front door.

"Sara!" Catherine called, launching herself off the couch and running after her. "Sara wait!"

By the time she caught her up, she was already at the end of the drive.

"Hey, where are you going?" She wheezed, grabbing her arm and dragging them both to a stop.

"Home." Sara answered, wrenching herself free.

"You don't have your car." Catherine pointed out. "You don't have your keys! Just come back inside, please – let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain." Sara held up her hands as a warning not to try and touch her again. "You took advantage of a situation to hurt me. I ... I need to get out of here."

"Sara, you can't just leave."

"I'll call a cab." The brunette declared, already walking away down the street. Catherine watched her go, distraught. She wanted to go after her, but Lindsey was still in the house and she couldn't just leave her.

She also didn't particularly need her neighbours witnessing her causing a scene in the middle of the night. God forbid someone should call the police – that was the last thing she needed.

Realising that she had little choice at this stage but to let Sara go, she sloped back up to the house, sending a silent prayer to anyone who might be listening that her distraught young friend made it home in one piece.

x X x

Nancy didn't even bother to knock; choosing instead to let herself right in.

"Catherine?" She called out quietly, aware that Lindsey would be asleep at this time of night.

Her sister materialised in front of her in a flash, already putting her coat on.

"Where are you going?" The nurse asked. "What's going on, you said it was an emergency?"

"Sara's gone; I need you to watch Lindsey for me." Catherine babbled, gathering up her car keys.

"Gone?" Nancy echoed, clutching her arm to stop her from leaving. "What do you mean she's gone?"

"She's gone, she went home." Catherine explained frantically. "At least I hope she's at home. She stormed out of here without her keys or her phone or anything..."

For the first time, Nancy got a good look at her sister's face and noted the dried tear-tracks staining her puffy red cheeks.

"What's happened?" She demanded sternly.

Catherine tried to speak a couple of times, but her voice kept catching in her throat. Eventually, she managed a few words.

"You were right – I shouldn't have told her."

"Oh, you didn't." Nancy hissed. "You told her about reading her file? What were you thinking?"

"I didn't mean to! I let something slip about her father that I shouldn't have known and she asked me outright how I knew. What was I supposed to say?"

"Catherine!" Nancy chastised, clawing a hand through her hair. "See, this is exactly why she should not have been here. You just cannot help yourself."

"I didn't call you here for a sermon." Catherine snapped tearfully, tugging her sleeve free.

"No? Then why am I here?"

"I need you to watch Lindsey."

"Where are you going?"

"To Sara's." She blinked as if it were obvious, taking a step towards the front door.

"Oh, because that's not a stupid idea!" Nancy stated sarcastically, blocking her path.

"I need to talk to her." Catherine insisted. "I need to make this right. At the very least I need to know that she's alright."

"Catherine, she's not going to want to talk to you right now." Nancy pointed out, taking her by the shoulders and marching her away from the door.

"What ... what am I supposed to do?" She asked helplessly, spinning back around to face her sister. Despite her anger at the mess she had gotten herself in, Nancy couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

"Come here," she said softly, nudging her towards the kitchen. "Let's make some coffee and you can explain to me how this all happened."

x X x

"It was just a throwaway comment." She shook her head, at a loss to explain how she had been so careless. "I didn't even think about it."

"I knew it was a bad idea for her to stay here." Nancy commented with a touch of bitterness as she absently spun her half-empty coffee mug between her hands.

"She needed to be here." Catherine countered tiredly. "She needed someone to look after her, after what happened."

"Yeah, see, that's your problem." Nancy scowled. "You gravitate towards the person who needs you and you let yourself get drawn in because that way you can put their needs above your own."

"You make it sound like a bad thing." Catherine frowned. "Aren't you supposed to put other people first? Isn't that just being a good person?"

"Not at the expense of looking after yourself." Nancy argued. "And not when it comes from a place of guilt."

"Guilt?" Catherine shook her head. "That's not why I asked Sara to stay – I was worried about her. I genuinely wanted to help her deal with what happened."

"No, you genuinely wanted to make _yourself_ feel better by doing something nice for her. But in doing so, you're only lying to yourself and hurting her."

"Nancy." Catherine choked out, shaking her head. "Come on, I love Sara – I wouldn't do anything to hurt her!"

"You love her." Nancy echoed, turning the words over in her mouth thoughtfully. "Like you loved Stephanie?"

Catherine visibly recoiled at the question, as if she had just been punched in the heart. Nancy didn't react at all, except to raise a slow, questioning eyebrow.

"You knew?" Cath asked at last, although it was less of a question than a verbal realisation.

"The day after she died, when you were in hospital," Nancy paused, shooting her sister a pointed look, "I was sat with you for a while. You were mumbling, talking to yourself. A lot of it was drug-induced nonsense; but you kept saying over and over how much you loved her – how she was _the one_."

Cath had resorted to staring at the table, refusing to meet her sister's eye. She didn't remember any of this, but she could quite believe it was true. She had loved Stephanie, more than she cared to admit out loud.

"You never said anything." She noted quietly.

"What was there to say?" Nancy shrugged. "Stephanie was dead and then all of a sudden you were engaged to Eddie."

Catherine shuffled, beginning to feel uncomfortable with the tone of the conversation. This was all very painful territory for her.

After a moment of silence, Nancy spoke again.

"You didn't answer the question."

"What question?" She murmured, pretending to pick at an invisible scratch on the table simply for an excuse to avoid her piercing gaze.

"Do you love Sara like you loved Stephanie?"

Catherine tipped her head back and exhaled.

"Stephanie was ... special." She noted fondly. "I don't know that I'll ever love anyone like that again."

"But..." Nancy pushed, refusing to drop the line of questioning until she had gotten a straight answer.

"But ... I care about her, a lot." Cath acknowledged, chewing anxiously on her lower lip. "I ... I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway, because nothing's going to happen."

"Until it does." Nancy countered. "I know you Catherine, once you get something in your mind, you don't let it go."

"Sara is a colleague, and a friend and ..." Catherine rambled, shaking her head. "And she doesn't need any of this right now. She's got enough on her plate, especially with everything I dropped on her tonight."

"So, you can just walk away from your feelings? Pretend they don't exist."

"If I have to." Cath answered warily. She still wasn't prepared to admit exactly what her feelings for Sara were, if she could even put a name to them herself.

"Really? You honestly think that you could be there for Sara as a friend and support her without getting your own heart broken in the process?"

Catherine didn't answer, but her sullen silence spoke volumes.

"I don't want to see you get hurt." Nancy continued firmly.

"Sara couldn't hurt me if she tried." Cath retorted.

"No, but you could hurt _yourself_ over her."

"I ..." Cath scowled, momentarily taken aback by the accusation. "I wouldn't do that."

"When Stephanie died, you took an overdose."

The statement was delivered with the kind of blunt calmness that only a medical professional could offer, that Catherine visibly winced.

"I was grieving."

"You tried to kill yourself." Nancy spat. "And you damn near succeeded. God knows, I hated Eddie, but it's a miracle he found you when he did."

"I was still using then." Cath said through gritted teeth. Her cocaine habit was not something she particularly liked to talk about and Nancy knew that better than anyone. "I'm not that person anymore."

"When Stephanie died, you went completely off the rails. You spiralled into an addiction..."

"Hey, I was never an addict." Cath bit back defensively. "I was a _user_ , but I stopped when I wanted to stop."

"You stopped when your nose collapsed." Nancy argued, her simmering anger finally boiling over.

Having had enough of this conversation, Catherine pushed herself away from the table and muttered a few expletives in her sister's general direction. Clutching her coffee mug to her chest, she walked to the window and stood with her back to her sibling; an act of silent defiance.

Nancy took the bait and stood up as well.

"I warned you that you were in too deep." She advised. "Stay away from her, at least for tonight. You both need some time to cool off."

As she made to leave, Catherine spun around, watching her disappear through the house. She tightened her grip on her coffee mug, resisting the urge to throw it at the doorframe her sister had just vanished through.

She didn't know what made her more angry – the scathing character assassination Nancy had just launched –

– or the sickening realisation that she was right.


	21. Chapter 21

She slammed the phone down with a frustrated growl.

She had left messages on Sara's cell phone and home phone, with no response to either. She had also called the lab, on the off chance that Sara had sought refuge there and, as a last desperate measure, she had called Greg.

No luck. Wherever Sara was, she evidently did not want to be found.

Which was too damn bad, because Catherine could not settle until she knew that the injured brunette was alright.

Deciding that there was only one thing for it, she badgered her neighbour into watching Lindsey for her, and screeched her car down the road.

Sara didn't have to talk to her if she didn't want, but Cath needed to know that she was okay. If she slammed the door in her face, at least she would know that she had made it home in one piece.

x X x

There was nothing but silence emanating from the apartment, which was becoming increasingly unsettling with every long second that passed.

Catherine was just about to lose hope, when she heard the chain slide off the door and it creaked open. In the back of her mind, she wondered whether Sara had been stood on the other side the whole time, debating whether or not to answer.

When it finally opened, she felt instantly conflicted.

Sara was clearly okay physically, to her utmost relief; but the heartbreak written all of her face was impossible to overlook, along with the realisation that Catherine herself was the cause of that pain.

"Hi." She squeaked pathetically. "I've been trying to call you."

"I know." Sara answered hoarsely. "I didn't want to talk."

"Okay." Catherine nodded, biting her lower lip nervously. "That's fair enough. You don't have to talk. But, are you willing to listen ... just for a minute?"

It was a big ask, given the circumstances, and Sara was obviously deliberating over the enquiry. While Catherine would never know her reasons, eventually she opened the door wide enough to allow her entry into the apartment.

As she slipped inside, once again letting the warming colours wash over her, she felt a small sense of optimism.

She had already gotten further than she expected. Sara was willing to listen.

Now, she just had to figure out what she was going to say.

x X x

"I never wanted to hurt you."

Sara hadn't moved an inch since Catherine began her timid explanation of how she came to be in possession of the information in that file, but that particular comment caused her eyes to flash with something akin to anger.

"How was this not going to hurt me?" She asked, her voice unnervingly calm.

"I was scared." Catherine swallowed around the lump in her throat. "I was worried about you – I thought that you were hurting yourself and I wanted to help, I wanted to ... to fix it."

She trailed off, feeling uncomfortable under Sara's intense gaze. She was perched on the coffee table in front of Sara, who had claimed a soft chair beside the couch. They were barely a foot apart and Catherine wanted desperately to reach out and touch her, to grasp her hand or stroke her cheek; but she resisted the temptation.

"I wanted you to trust me." She offered helplessly at last.

"I did trust you." Sara mumbled, finally breaking their staring contest and casting her glance towards the floor. "But it doesn't count when it's built on deception."

"But you trusted me before that – you told your doctor that you wanted to talk to me about something..."

"Yeah, I did." Sara sniffed, pinning her hands between her knees. "I thought you could help me, but obviously I was wrong about that too."

"No," Catherine insisted, almost pleadingly. "No, you weren't. I know that I screwed up, but I promise it came from a good place. The idea of you cutting yourself and not being able to reach out to anyone – it hurt more than I can even explain. I just wanted to make it right."

Sara still wasn't looking at her, but she reached out to swipe at a stray tear and Catherine felt her heart twinge at the thought that she might have finally gotten through to her. However, her hopes were quickly dashed when Sara finally did speak up again.

"I want you to go now."

Cath visibly deflated at the quiet request.

"Sara, please..." She begged, tears beginning to well up in her own eyes.

"You asked for the chance to explain and you've done that." Sara offered succinctly. "I want you to leave. Please."

For the whole drive home, and long afterwards, Catherine would wonder what possessed her to do what she did next; but try as she might, she could not come up with a viable answer.

The closest explanation was that it was a last-ditch act of desperation to show Sara how much she cared about her.

Without any warning, she lunged forwards and pressed her lips to the startled brunette's.

x X x

As her car crawled down the deserted street beneath the barely-risen sun, she did her best to compose herself, ready to send her neighbour off with a smile and a pack of lies.

However, her barely-maintained facade fell the instant she noted her sister's car parked on her driveway.

"Nancy?" She greeted cautiously, creeping into the house.

Before she even reached the lounge, her sister materialised in front of her, her hands on her hips and a pre-prepared sceptical frown on her face.

"Where have you been?"

"What are you doing here?" Catherine croaked, avoiding the question.

"I felt bad for running out on you, so I came back." Nancy explained. "And I found your neighbour babysitting your daughter. So, again, where have you been?"

"I ..." she stopped, choosing her words carefully. However, her pause just allowed Nancy to confirm what she already suspected.

"Oh, what were you thinking?" The younger sibling demanded. "You went to her apartment."

"I had to see her." Catherine insisted tearfully. "I had to know that she was okay."

"And, was she?"

Cath sank her teeth into her lower lip and shook her head.

"No. I tried to explain, but I think I made it worse."

"I told you to leave it alone. There's nothing you can say to her right now that she's going to want to hear." Nancy threw her hands out and stomped back into the lounge, with Cath trailing after her.

"It's not what I said that's the problem." She choked out. "I kissed her."

Nancy stopped dead in the middle of the room and slowly turned back to face her, a look of incredulity plastered on her face.

"You did what?"

"I know, I know it was a stupid thing to do!" She sobbed, clawing both hands through her hair. "I don't know how it happened!"

"Catherine, she was sexually assaulted yesterday!" The nurse bellowed, barely even hearing Cath's protestations. "What were you thinking?"

"I know that too!"

"Have you completely lost your mind?"

"No," Catherine interjected, attempting to catch her breath between stuttered words. "No, this is your fault. Yes, I blame you!"

"My fault?" Nancy recoiled, insulted.

"Yes, you got in my head with all that talk about Stephanie."

Nancy made a dismissive noise, but now that Catherine had found her voice she was running with it.

"I'm serious. You know, there's a reason I don't let myself think about her – it's because I do stupid things when she gets in my head and this is just a prime example; I ... I act out and I ..."

"Hey, alright," Nancy finally noted how agitated her sister was and her demeanour softened as she attempted to calm her down. "Just take a breath."

"No, I can't." Catherine gasped, gripping her outstretched hand. "What the hell am I supposed to do? She could get me fired for this!"

Nancy grasped her by the shoulders and gently guided her onto the couch.

"Look, I'm not going to say that what you didn't wasn't stupid." She said softly, as Catherine began to suck in gulping breaths in an attempt to compose herself. "But it might not be as bad as you think. How did she react?"

"She didn't." Catherine hiccupped. "I didn't give her chance. I panicked and I ... ran out."

In an instant, all of Nancy's sympathy evaporated.

"You just left her there?" She blinked. "She's recovering from a sexual assaul; you kiss her and then run out on her? When you know that she self-harms?!"

"Oh God." Catherine buried her head in her hands. "What have I done?"

"What even possessed you to do it?" Nancy asked, moving to sit on the coffee table and inadvertently mirroring the position Catherine and Sara had found themselves in at the apartment.

"You should know," Catherine sniffed, wiping pitifully at her eyes. "You called me out on it last night."

Nancy inhaled sharply, straightening up.

"So, you _do_ have feelings for her?"

To her surprise, Catherine laughed, although it was a sad, baffled sort of laugh.

"Of course I do." She threw her head back against the couch cushions. "I have for years, but I've always tried to push them away."

"Why?"

"Why?" She echoed with surprise. "Because she's a colleague and a woman and ... and because of Grissom."

"Grissom?" Nancy scrunched up her nose. "Are they a thing?"

"No, but they used to be. At least, I'm pretty sure they were."

"When?"

"I don't know, before she moved to Vegas." Catherine threw a hand out as if to dismiss the line of questioning. "What does it matter? The point is, how do I fix this?"

"Fix it?" Nancy scowled. "Catherine, you can't _fix_ it. You invaded a colleague's privacy and then stuck your tongue down her throat while she was recovering from a sexual assault. You're right; she could have you fired for this – especially if she throws in your recent track history and your newfound links to a murderer."

"No, she ... Sara wouldn't do that. She wouldn't use Sam against me like that." Catherine said quietly, although she was unable to hide the dread that crept onto her face at the thought. "She knows how much it would hurt me."

Feeling her simmering anger starting to rise again at Catherine's attitude to the situation, Nancy stood up and turned to face the distraught CSI.

"Quite frankly Cath, I bet Sara doesn't give a damn what happens to you right now – and why the hell should she?"

Catherine watched her stalk through the house, too stunned to offer a reply.

Alone in the wake of the door slamming, tears began to silently trek down her cheeks and her breath caught in her throat once more.


	22. Chapter 22

She put the phone down, swallowing back tears. She had called Sara so many times tonight, she had her number memorised. But still no answer.

"Mommy?" A little voice enquired, causing her to jump. "Why are you crying?"

"Oh, honey." Catherine wiped pitifully at her eyes. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

Lindsey slid into the chair beside her, a petulant little frown on her face at having her question ignored.

"What's wrong?" She almost demanded, bringing a small smile to Catherine's lips. At times like this, it was like looking at a miniature version of herself.

"Nothing's wrong, sweetheart." She insisted, reaching out to tangle her fingers in Lindsey's silky hair. "I'm just feeling sorry for myself."

"Why?" Lindsey persisted, cocking her head to the side.

"Because I did something very silly."

"What did you do?"

Catherine chewed on her lower lip. How to explain the situation to a child..? She was not in the habit of lying to Lindsey, even when it was a difficult subject to broach.

"I kissed someone that I shouldn't have." She admitted at last, watching the child carefully as she considered this.

"Who?"

"It was Sara." She exhaled.

"Is that why she's not here anymore?" Lindsey asked. "Her bedroom's empty."

Somehow, Catherine wasn't surprised that the child had checked on the spare room before coming in for breakfast.

"Partly, yeah." She acknowledged. "She's gone back to her apartment."

"So, why shouldn't you have done it?" Lindsey pressed, not happy to drop the subject yet. "Because Sara's a girl?"

"No!" Her abrupt response startled the girl and Cath quickly reached out to place a hand over hers. "No, not ... that's not..."

She stopped, organising her thoughts for a moment. She needed to get this right, for her daughter's sake.

"Honey, sometimes girls like girls and boys like boys, and that's okay. It doesn't matter who people fall in love with, as long as they're happy."

"Okay." Lindsey drawled. "So, why was it wrong? Don't you love Sara?"

Catherine exhaled. That was a loaded question.

"Of course I love her, baby." She smiled weakly. "But Sara was upset about something and I was supposed to be comforting her."

"Isn't that why you kissed her?"

"No." Cath admitted uncertainly. "To be honest, I don't know why I did it. But I shouldn't have done, because she wasn't expecting it and it might have made her even more upset. I'm not sure she's going to want to be around me much anymore."

Lindsey went quiet for a moment, absorbing this wealth of information. Catherine remained silent, watching the multitude of expressions working their way across her daughter's face. And when she finally spoke again, it wasn't what Catherine was expecting.

"If I want to know whether someone likes me, I ask my best friend to ask them."

Catherine smiled at the innocence of youth. If only the world was as simple as children made it out to be.

Then again, perhaps that wasn't the worst idea in the world. Sara clearly wasn't interested in listening to her, but she could still get a message to her via someone else.

She cast a glance at the clock. It was still early and Grave wouldn't have finished yet.

Sitting forward, she folded Lindsey's hand into her own.

"You want to go for a ride to the lab before school?"

x X x

"Catherine!"

She grimaced, skidding to a halt. She had left Lindsey in the break room with a book and a yoghurt, and was en route to find Greg – Sara's number one confidante – but in her haste, she'd forgotten about one little thing.

Grissom was back.

As she turned around, the entomologist emerged from the shadows of his office and briefly raised an eyebrow at her, before retreating back inside on the unspoken assumption that she would follow him.

With a sigh, she dutifully obliged.

"Gil." She greeted tentatively. "Did you want something?"

He had shuffled back behind his desk and looked up at the question, giving her a brief once-over.

"An explanation would be nice." He answered in a deceptively light tone, sinking into his chair.

She felt her stomach knot. Her increasingly frantic attempts to get Sara to answer the phone had failed, but evidently someone else had spoken to her.

"Alright, I know." She held up her hands apologetically. "I screwed up – I screwed up so many times, I can't even begin to explain it. I swear, I never meant to hurt her; I was just worried and I wanted to help and I thought that maybe if I knew what was going on I could find a way to get through to her..."

As she babbled breathlessly, the frown on Grissom's face grew deeper.

"Who are we talking about?" He cleared his throat when she finally stopped for air.

"Sara." She answered as if it was obvious, but the response only served to increase his confusion. Realising her error, she felt heat rising up her cheeks and gulped. "Were you not talking about Sara?"

"No," he licked his lips, sitting forward curiously in his chair. "I was talking about Sam."

"Oh." She mouthed, casting her eyes to the ground. In her panic over the brunette, she had almost forgotten about her screw-up with Sam and her illicit use of the DNA lab to prove her own paternity.

Despite Gil's recent leave of absence, the gossip grapevine had finally found him. However, he quickly put thoughts of Sam Braun on hold for the time being.

"What's happened with Sara?" He enquired when she didn't offer any further response.

"I ... she ..." she stuttered. "I did something stupid, but I'm dealing with it."

"Nick told me that you've been ... overprotective of her lately." He quirked that questioning eyebrow again. "Even before what happened to her in the parking lot."

"Yeah..." she hummed, visibly unimpressed with the fact that Nick had been running his mouth off to Gil about it.

"So, has something else happened that I should know about?"

Catherine knew how to play this game. She had played it with Grissom more times than she cared to remember over the course of their friendship. He obviously already knew that she had done something wrong – she had admitted as much – and she knew that he would be able to find out what it was. So, she had a choice. She could 'fess up now and accept whatever judgemental comments he had to offer; or she could deflect and let him find out on his own, at which point he'd be even more annoyed with her for not confessing when she had the chance.

Releasing a tired sigh, she let her shoulders sink, a telltale sign of resignation.

"Okay." She braced herself. "While you were away, I picked up this case – someone had broken into and blown up a psychiatrist's office. He let me have access to his redacted patient files in case one of them turned out to be a suspect."

"And?" Grissom pressed, not quite understanding what any of this had to do with Catherine's apparent screw-up.

"And ... one of the case files belonged to Sara." She swallowed hard, recalling the moment she realised whose file she was holding. "And I read it."

"You read it?" He echoed. " _After_ you realised it was hers?"

"Yes, I know." She sniffed, clawing both hands through her hair. "It was a huge invasion of her privacy. I'm a terrible person; I should never have done it!"

If she was expecting a blow-up, it never came. Grissom leant back in his chair, the soft leather creaking in the ominous silence that hung between them.

"So, why did you?"

She flicked her eyes up, searching his face and finding nothing but mild curiosity there.

"I was worried about her. I wanted to help her, but I didn't know what she needed help with."

She elected to leave out the part about Sara self-harming. Somehow, she didn't think the brunette would thank her for spreading that around unnecessarily.

"You could have just asked her." He pointed out.

"Yeah, I know. I should have." She nodded sadly.

"Is that all?" He pushed when she made no effort to move.

She looked up again, studying his face. She had trusted this man with so many of her secrets. Perhaps she could offload one more on to him.

"No." She stepped closer to the desk, wringing her hands in front of her tensely. "She found out last night and she was understandably upset. She went back to her apartment ... I was worried about her, because of what happened yesterday, so I followed her and ..."

"And...?"

"We, I ... we were talking and I kissed her."

Somewhere in the back of Catherine's mind, it registered that this was the third time she had told someone and it still wasn't getting any easier. The words appeared to hover in the air for a moment, suspended between them like arrows caught in the wind, before a look of hurt finally settled itself on Grissom's boyish features.

"You did what?" He asked calmly, although the pain reverberating through his voice was impossible to ignore.

"She was asking me to leave, and I was upset and I didn't know how else to make her understand how much I care about her and ... I kissed her."

He inhaled deeply, considering his next words. She suspected that he threw out several questions before eventually voicing one out loud.

"What did she say?"

"Nothing, I panicked and I ran out on her." She sniffled, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. "That's why I came here – I can't get her to answer the phone. I was hoping that someone else might be able to get hold of her and maybe convince her to hear me out..."

He opened his mouth to speak, but whatever he was about to say died on his lips, as his gaze flicked past her towards the door.

After a few seconds of him not answering, she cottoned on to his distracted attention and turned, seeking out the cause of it.

For what it was worth, Sara appeared equally started to see her as Catherine was.

"Sara." She breathed, a mix of relief and embarrassment flooding her voice. She had no idea how long the girl had been stood there, or how much she had heard, but she was so grateful to see that she was okay.

The sound of her own name seemed to snap Sara back from her trance and she turned brusquely on her heel and disappeared back into the hallway without uttering a word.

Grissom remained behind his desk, watching the silent exchange of emotions between the two women with intrigue. When Catherine offered him a helpless look, he merely shrugged.

"Well, you found her." He said, giving no further indication of whether he thought that was a good thing or not.

Realising that that was as much support as she was going to get from him right now, she dropped her shoulders and turned to follow her subordinate out into the hallway.

x X x

She had hoped that by hiding in one of the lesser-used labs, she could evade being found for a little while longer; at least until she had decided what her next move would be.

Having calmed down somewhat since Cath fled her apartment, she had been hoping to catch Greg and go out for breakfast to talk things over with him. He may be a clown at times, but he was a good listener and he had never judged her.

But after spotting Catherine in Grissom's office, it had thrown her all off kilter again. Seeing the blonde in person reminded her why she had been so angry. The last thing she wanted to do right now was talk to her again.

Alas, she knew that she couldn't hide away forever; but to her surprise, it wasn't the older Willows woman who found her.

The little girl's footsteps gave away her attempts to sneak into the room and Sara turned, raising an eyebrow at her. Lindsey smiled guiltily, before approaching the bench and climbing onto the stool beside Sara.

"What are you doing here?" Sara asked, attempting to hide her frustration for the time being.

"Mom brought me." She answered easily, her head cocked to the side as she scrutinised Sara. "Are you mad at her?"

Sara pursed her lips, biting back a smile. She didn't profess to be the biggest fan of children, but she couldn't fault their directness.

"I guess, a little bit." She conceded.

"She's really sorry." Lindsey stated earnestly. "She didn't mean to upset you when she kissed you."

The comment caught Sara off guard and her mouth fell open in surprise. Would Catherine really have told her that?

When Lindsey continued to stare at her hopefully, the brunette offered a sympathetic smile.

"She didn't upset me." She assured the girl. Quite frankly, that was a lie; but Lindsey appeared oddly distressed by all of this and Sara didn't want to hurt her any further.

"So, you do like her, right?" Lindsey pressed, her wide-blue eyes searching Sara's face. "Because she really likes you, and she'll be really sad if you don't talk to her anymore."

Sara shook her head, baffled by this onslaught of emotional blackmail from an elementary school kid.

Unsure of how to answer the question, and not even convinced that she should be having the conversation with the child in the first place, she decided to end it before it could get any more awkward.

"You should get back to your mom; she's probably looking for you."

Smart enough to realise that she was being dismissed, Lindsey dropped her head and slinked off the stool. But before she left, she had one parting comment left to offer.

"Mom must really love you. You're the only person to make her cry, after dad."

Sara watched her paddle back into the hallway, once again stunned into silence.

She was still angry with Catherine. Not about the kiss, that was just downright puzzling. She was angry about the unnecessary invasion of her privacy.

But, irate as she was, the idea of Catherine crying over her did not give her any satisfaction either.

x X x

So far, as plans went, this one was not working out so well.

Greg wasn't in his lab, she couldn't find Sara and now she had lost Lindsey as well.

Taking a moment to regroup in the locker room, she found herself staring forlornly at Sara's locker. It was here that it all began. It was in the mirror inside this locker that she had seen the reflection of those cuts on Sara's stomach.

If only she had said something then, she could have saved herself all this heartache.

"That was a cheap trick."

She jumped, startled out of her memories by Sara's voice behind her.

"What?"

"Sending your daughter in to convince me to forgive you."

Catherine didn't know what she was talking about, but she could hazard a guess.

"Did it work?" She asked, neglecting to deny that she had anything to do with whatever Lindsey had apparently done. "Do you forgive me?"

For one brief, optimistic moment, she thought that she saw a flicker of affection cross Sara's features. But when the brunette spoke, her voice was level and emotionless.

"Lindsey's cute, but it's going to take more than that."

Catherine cast her eyes down sadly. Of course, she had never intended for her daughter to fight her battle for her, but for a split second there she had thought that Lindsey's charms might have worked some magic on her stoic colleague.

"Sara," she began meekly, but the younger woman had said her piece and turned to leave. "Sara, wait..."

To her surprise, the brunette stopped, but kept her back to Catherine.

She inched closer, flexing her hands nervously.

"Please, just give me a chance to explain." She begged.

"I thought you already did." Sara pointed out coldly. "Wasn't that why you came to my apartment?"

Catherine pursed her lips. Taking another step closer, held reached a tentative hand out to brush Sara's back.

"Please," she repeated. "Five minutes. That's all I ask."


	23. Chapter 23

The second her hand touched Sara's back, the brunette reacted like she had been scalded and immediately moved out of Catherine's reach.

"Sar," Cath frowned, attempting to take a step closer.

"Just, stay away from me." Sara mumbled, backing out of the room and stumbling her way into the corridor.

Catherine, startled by the excessive reaction, followed her. To her surprise, Sara had taken off at speed down the hall.

In hindsight, she would realise that chasing Sara through the lab wasn't the best course of action to take; but at the time she was acting on instinct.

"Sara, wait!" She called, catching sight of the girl disappearing into the elevator. Picking up her pace, charging past bemused lab techs as she went, she managed to reach the elevator before the doors closed and threw herself inside.

Sara's expression was a mix of shock and annoyance, which she attempted to hide behind a scowl.

"What part of 'stay away from me' didn't you get?" She asked as the doors slid closed, sealing them both inside.

"I know that you're angry with me, I don't blame you." Catherine stated, causing Sara to roll her eyes. "But you don't have to be scared of me!"

There was a touch of hurt to her voice that Sara tried to ignore. Refusing to rise to the comment, she stepped back into the corner, placing as much distance between them as she could in the enclosed box, and crossed her arms defensively.

"Look, we're on the same team, so we're going to have to work this out somehow." Catherine continued, remaining where she was in an attempt to avoid making Sara even more uncomfortable. "We can't carry on like this forever."

For a moment, despite her sullen demeanour, Sara appeared to consider the statement.

However, when she opened her mouth to speak, her words were unceremoniously cut off by a thud from above, before the elevator emitted a piercing screech as it came to a grinding halt.

Both women attempted to grab the smooth walls, bracing themselves as their carrier shuddered to a stop.

When it finally did, they met each other's eyes across the small space with a shared look of concern, but it was Sara who voiced what they were both thinking.

"Uh oh."

x X x

"Yeah, okay ... thanks Gil." She sighed, hanging up the call. "Well, maintenance are en route, but until they find out the cause of the problem, we could be in here for a while." She explained to her companion, who had been listening in expectantly.

"Great." Sara said tightly, pressing her back against the wall and sinking down to the floor.

Catherine watched her for a moment. Even though it was the perfect opportunity for them to clear the air, Sara had made it abundantly clear that she did not want to talk right now and promptly sank her gaze to the ground to avoid any chance of eye-contact.

Choosing instead to keep her distance, Catherine pulled out her phone again and stared at it.

Grissom had assured her that someone would get Lindsey to school, so there was no one she particularly needed to contact, but she felt like she needed to do something to occupy her hands. She had always found it funny to see people in public, pretending to be texting when they were in fact just trying not to look sad and alone. But now, she could understand the behaviour.

As she stared at the little screen, trying to find a way to distract herself from the deafening silence, she didn't notice the hazel eyes which had lifted from the floor and were staring intently at her.

"I'm not suicidal."

The defensive statement came out of the blue and caused Catherine to jump. She turned, surprised to find Sara scrutinising her with a dark look on her face.

Happy to take the opening, she slid her phone back into her pocket and ambled over, joining her colleague on the floor with her back against the cool metal wall. Sara never took her eyes off her, studying her every movement. She had always found Sara's eyes to be her most intense feature, and never more so than now.

"I never said you were." She noted softly. "But you _were_ self-harming."

Sara shifted her gaze shamefully, tucking her hands in her lap. Catherine reached out towards her, but stopped herself from touching Sara, lest she startle her again.

"Honey, I'm not judging you." She insisted. "It was never like that. I just wanted to know how to help you."

Sara tipped her head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling.

"Why?"

"Why what?" Cath frowned.

"Why did you suddenly want to help me?" Sara asked. "When I came to you for help a few weeks ago, you weren't interested."

"I know," Cath swallowed hard. "You caught me on a bad day. I wish I could take that back, but I can't. That's why I wanted to try and make it up to you."

"You could have just talked to me, asked me what was wrong."

"I know." Cath conceded. "But you know, you're not the most _open_ of people. I didn't think you'd have talked to me if I just came right out and asked."

Sara scowled at the comment, but didn't contest it.

After a long moment of silence, the brunette finally spoke up again.

"So, why did you kiss me?"

It was a question she had been expecting, but it still caused Catherine to choke out a surprised laugh.

"I wish I knew." She admitted. "I'm sorry, I know that it must have shocked you, especially after everything that happened the day before..."

"No," Sara cut her off. "I mean, yeah, I wasn't expecting it but I ... I wasn't ..."

She trailed off, apparently unable to explain what she was feeling about it.

When she didn't speak again, Catherine exhaled.

"You know my best friend, Stephanie Watson, who I used to dance with?"

"The girl who was killed behind the club?" Sara asked. She recalled Catherine and Warrick reopening the investigation into her death last year.

"Yeah." Cath pursed her lips. "Well, she was more than my best friend. She and I ... we had a thing at the time, although we were keeping it quiet. I met Eddie around the same time."

She had her gaze fixed ahead on the elevator doors, but she could feel Sara watching her, obviously wondering where she was going with this story.

"Stephanie wanted me to end things with Eddie and go public with her, but I was too scared of the potential backlash. The night she was killed, we were supposed to be together – we were going to talk, to decide what to do about us; but Eddie had a gig, so I cancelled on her. If I'd been with her ..."

"Don't." Sara mumbled to cut her off. "It wasn't your fault."

Catherine dropped her eyes and sniffed. It didn't take away the sting, but she was touched that, in spite of everything, Sara was still willing to offer that comfort.

"The night after she died, I took an overdose. I woke up in hospital hours later, with my mother sat there saying how disappointed in me she was. It wasn't long after that that Eddie proposed. And since I'd lost Steph, I said yes. And I never looked at another woman since ... until you were unceremoniously dropped into my life."

Despite the tense situation, Sara couldn't help the smile that crept onto her face at her colourful wording.

"Sorry." She mumbled. "You know that I ... I don't..."

"I know." Catherine held up her hands. "I know. And it's not your fault. None of this is. It's just ... me. Somehow, I always manage to screw things up."

Sara frowned. She had never seen her supervisor like this before. She seemed almost defeated ... vulnerable.

"I didn't know any of this." She offered at last. "You and Stephanie, and ..."

"No one does." Catherine admitted, sucking in a breath. "It's not exactly something I'm proud of."

She looked up and forced herself to meet Sara's gaze.

"That's why I was so scared for you when I saw those cuts. I know what it's like to be that low. I'd hate to see you do something stupid because you didn't think you could talk to us."

"I'm not suicidal." Sara reiterated.

"I was." Cath stated bluntly. "But I didn't even realise it until it was too late. When I was sat on the floor of my apartment, binging on cocaine and vodka, I wasn't intentionally trying to kill myself; but that's what I wanted to happen. It sneaks up on you sometimes. If I'd had a gun back then, I probably wouldn't be here now."

"Do you ... still feel like that?" Sara asked tentatively.

"Sometimes." Catherine admitted with a shaky breath. "But I've got Lindsey now. I could never do anything like that to her. I learned to control my emotions, vent them properly."

Sara nodded in understanding.

"That's why I was trying to do." She admitted sadly. "That's why I was in counselling. To stop..."

She trailed off, but Catherine knew what she was referring to and her eyes instinctively fell to Sara's stomach.

"Have you stopped?" She asked.

Sara shifted, uncomfortable with the question.

"I'm still working on it." She confessed. "I hadn't done it for years, not since I was a teenager."

Catherine adjusted her position, turning to face her better.

"So, what happened to change that?"

"You should know." Sara shrugged, a definite edge to her voice. "You read all about it."

Catherine frowned, trying to think back to what Sara's file had said.

"I know about your parents, and your childhood." She conceded. "But I don't know why you went into therapy now, what triggered it all recently."

Sara blinked at her. She had no idea what her counsellor was scribbling down in their sessions. Evidently, his notes were not as detailed as she had first assumed.

There was an obvious question burning behind Catherine's statement, and Sara had a choice now as to whether to answer. She could tell Catherine the truth about what had driven her back to self-harm and into therapy; or she could shut her down on the grounds that she already knew too much.

Catherine watched quietly, optimistically, as a multitude of emotions crossed her face. When she finally did speak, it was a quiet, cryptic confession.

"Melissa Winters."

 **x X x**

 **For those unfamiliar with the name Melissa Winters, see season 3 episode 14 One Hit Wonder**


	24. Chapter 24

Melissa Winters. Catherine played the name over in her mind, conjuring the image of a savvy blonde woman in a wheelchair.

"The lawyer – the one who was shot by her husband, after she shot him?" She said at last.

"I was working with her for months." Sara nodded, her voice beginning to crack. "We became pretty close. I thought I knew her."

"You re-opened the case into her shooting after her surgery." Catherine recalled aloud. "That's how you found out that she killed her husband, that it wasn't a break-in like she'd claimed."

Again, Sara nodded.

"It just ... re-opened some old wounds, I guess." She inhaled a shaky breath. "Everything I know about my father's death, I know from my mother. But she was a violent, schizophrenic alcoholic. I guess I just started to wonder whether things were really as black and white as she made them out to be. So, I did some digging into the case and I found out that they weren't. Turns out, there's a lot that I didn't know."

She sniffed sadly, attempting to stem the tears trying to creep out.

"I tried to help out a friend; ended up sending her to jail. I tried to get some closure about my past ... and now I can't sleep anymore." She trailed off, shooting her companion a wry smile. "And you wonder why I don't trust people."

Without invitation, Catherine slipped her hand into Sara's and squeezed it gently.

"You can trust me."

Sara stared at their conjoined hands for a moment, before tugging her own back into her lap.

"My mother took a lot from me, Catherine. And then, in foster care, I lost everything else. I didn't get a say in my own life until I was at college. I _have_ to have control of my own life now and you violated that when you read my personal information."

"Sara, I'm not trying to take anything from you, I promise." Catherine pleaded, inching herself closer. "I just want you to be okay, I want you to be safe."

"I don't need you to look after me." Sara scowled defensively. "I don't need anyone; I can take care of myself."

Cath's lips twitched at the petulant comment, but she resisted the urge to smile, sensing that it would only heighten Sara's attitude right now. Instead, she placed a hand on the brunette's leg and leant forward until she caught her eye.

"Have you ever let anyone close enough to try?"

x X x

"What were you going to tell me?"

A heavy silence had befallen them after Sara declined to answer her last question, but Catherine wasn't one to give up easily and she wasn't prepared to let the conversation die just yet.

Not in the least because they were still trapped in the elevator and the eerie stillness was killing her.

Sara exhaled, tipping her head back against the metal wall.

"I wasn't going to _tell_ you anything." She frowned. "I was going to ask you something."

Catherine shifted, leaning her shoulder against the wall so she was better facing her colleague.

"Okay, so ask me."

"No."

Once again, Catherine resisted the urge to smile at her sulky response. Reaching into Sara's lap, she gripped the brunette's hands and tugged them towards herself.

"Sara, please. I've done something to hurt you and I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you."

Sara had barely heard her. She was staring at their conjoined hands, watching as Catherine caressed her knuckles with the pad of her thumb. It was such a natural movement for the blonde, she didn't even seem aware that she was doing it.

"How do you do that?" She asked quietly.

"What?" Catherine frowned, straightening up ever so slightly. In response, Sara pulled her hands back and pinned them between her legs.

"Forget it. Can we just drop the subject please?"

Catherine remained where she was, watching her colleague through narrowed eyes. She didn't know what it was she had done that had apparently perplexed Sara so much, but at least it had elicited a reaction of some kind. Sensing that it had begun when she took Sara's hands, she slowly reached out and grasped both of the girl's slender wrists. Sara looked up sharply, an unreadable look in her eyes.

"You'll think I'm pathetic." She said at last, looking away. It wasn't what Catherine had expected and the older woman recoiled at the suggestion.

"No, I won't!" She promised. Upon receiving a disbelieving look, she tightened her grip. "You're a lot of things, Sara Sidle, but pathetic is not one of them. And I'm not here to judge you. Whatever you want to say, just say it."

She was still grasping Sara's wrists, absently doodling patterns with her thumbs. Sara could feel the skin tingling and tried to pull away, but Catherine's hold on her was strong and unyielding.

When she had originally approached Cath with this question, she'd had it all planned out – until, that is, she actually spoke to the blonde and then it felt like all the words had fallen out of her head. She was suffering from that same affliction now.

She adjusted her position, although never managing to retract her arms from her companion's custody.

"My counsellor said that, because of what happened when I was a kid, I feel more comfortable sharing ideas than intimacy. It's safer, because there are no emotions involved. That's probably why I was so drawn towards Grissom, because he's kind of the same."

Catherine hummed in agreement, a wistful smile gracing her face at the observation.

"Dr Chambers recommended that I identify someone in my life – a woman, someone maternal – that I could open up to emotionally ... physically. Someone I trusted not to hurt me."

Catherine felt that familiar pang of guilt settle over her heart. After all, she had hurt Sara.

"You chose me." She surmised with a weak nod. She had wondered whether or not Sara had elected to talk to her because she genuinely trusted her, or just because she was the only female in her life, period.

It was a relief for her to know that she had not simply been the only option and Sara had wanted her help, specifically; even if it hadn't gone to plan.

"It comes easy to you." Sara shrugged awkwardly. "I see how you are with the guys and it's just ... natural. I was hoping that you could help me understand it."

Her voice had taken on an almost pleading tone and Catherine wanted so much to be able to help, but she did not actually know what her troubled young friend was talking about. Sliding her grip down from Sara's wrists to her hands, she squeezed them gently in an attempt to get Sara to meet her gaze.

"Honey, what are we talking about, exactly?" She asked softly.

Sara fidgeted uncomfortably. She was quiet for a long moment, but Catherine elected not to push her. Instead, she remained as she was, holding the girl's hands while she tried to find the words she was so desperately seeking.

"How do you learn how to trust people ... physically?" She managed to ask at last. It was a question which had been burning for weeks, and she almost felt relieved to be able to voice it. Almost.

However, it only served to further perplex Catherine, who finally released her and sat back. To her own surprise, Sara found that she missed the comforting touch.

"What do you mean?" Cath pressed. Sara exhaled, preparing to explain her predicament further, when the floor beneath them lurched and suddenly began to ascend.

As they both scrambled to their feet, the elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal Grissom and a technician waiting for them.

"Are you alright?" Gil asked, flicking a worried gaze between the two of them.

Sara didn't stick around long enough to answer, brushing between the two men and stalking down the hall as fast as she could without breaking into a run.

Grissom watched her go, before turning back to Catherine with a questioning look.

Wordlessly, she stepped out of the enclosed space and followed her colleague. Grissom scowled at the lack of a response, but she didn't care.

She had been so damn close.


	25. Chapter 25

"Sara!" She called, running after her. "Sara, wait!"

Having finally been freed from the elevator, the brunette had made her excuses and left the building as soon as possible. Technically, her shift finished hours ago, so she had no reason to stick around. But Catherine wasn't through yet.

Thankfully, she did stop. Catherine jogged across the parking lot to catch her up, while Sara remained stood with her back to her, her jaw set in frustration.

"Cath, please I just want to go home." She said, a distinctive edge to her voice despite the slight tremor to it.

"Sara, I ... we..." She stopped, taking a deep breath. "Can we go get a cup of coffee or something?"

Sara exhaled, refusing to meet her eye. Taking that as neither acceptance nor refusal, Cath took a cautious step closer, sliding a hand onto the base of Sara's back.

"I never answered your question." She pointed out softly.

x X x

"I know that what happened with Melissa upset you." Catherine began randomly once the waitress left them alone in their booth. "But it just highlighted one of the reasons I respect you so much."

Sara looked up, apparently surprised by the comment, and quirked an eyebrow in a silent request for elaboration.

"Your integrity." Cath explained. "Even though she was your friend, and even though it killed you to do it, you still did the right thing and turned her in. That's who you are."

"Of course." Sara frowned. "What else could I do?"

"Lie." Cath shrugged. "Pretend that you didn't figure it out."

"I couldn't do that." Sara shook her head, a perplexed scowl on her face at the suggestion.

"I know you couldn't; that's my point." Cath smiled softly. "You're a good person Sara, in every sense of the word. And whatever happened to you when you were younger, it made you who you are today. You didn't deserve it, but you made something good out of it. That's what counts."

Sara looked down again, sinking her gaze into the blackness of her coffee.

"Maybe." She agreed quietly. "But that doesn't make it any easier to live with."

Catherine reached across the table and gripped her hands.

"I really do want to help you deal with it." She promised. "But you have to help me understand what it is that you need."

Sara tried to retract her hands, but Catherine held her strong.

"You asked me how to trust people _physically_." She said carefully, squeezing Sara's hands tightly. "Did you mean this?"

"I guess." Sara fidgeted in her seat. "It's ... it's hard to explain."

"I've got time." Catherine smiled sweetly. She shifted her grip slightly to Sara's wrists, just like she had in the elevator, and felt the brunette tense up beneath her fingertips. This time, Sara managed to tug her arms free, tucking them into her lap, where Catherine couldn't reach them.

The older woman frowned sadly at the movement, sliding her own hands back across the table.

"Do you think I would hurt you?" She asked quietly, almost not sure that she wanted to hear the answer.

Sara visibly swallowed, her eyes darting around at everything except Catherine's face.

"No." She said at last. "The logical part of me doesn't. But physically ... I can't help it. I ... react."

Catherine's heart constricted at the sight of her struggle and she wanted desperately to reach out to her again, but she stopped herself.

"Sara, look at me." She requested quietly, waiting for the brunette to lift her eyes. "I don't know exactly what your parents did to you, honey, but I'm not them. I won't hurt you like they did."

Sara seemed to be chewing it over for a while, deliberating on where to take it from here. She could feel Catherine's piercing gaze scrutinising her, but made a conscious effort not to meet her eye.

"My father was angry, a lot of the time." She offered at last. "He would shout, he'd lose his temper. I don't know how many holes he punched in the walls, how many things he broke. After he died, he was held up as an abusive husband, father ... the local media, the courts ... they all made him sound like some kind of monster."

Catherine remained still, listening intently as Sara's voice began to quiver.

"But my mother was ... unstable. She could be very sweet and loving at times, and then suddenly she would turn. When she touched me, I never knew what I was going to get. It was ... unsettling."

Tears had begun to creep down her cheeks, not that she seemed aware of them.

"I know that my father was no angel, but whatever he did, whatever he became, it was because of her."

Catherine caught sight of the waitress looking over at them, a curious expression on her face at Sara's obvious distress. Silently, she slithered out of her side of the booth and around the table, sliding in beside Sara. It gave her the opportunity to place a comforting hand on her friend's back, but also served to shield her from prying eyes in her vulnerable moment.

Sara barely even seemed to register the movement as she continued talking.

"My mother always told me that she did what she did to protect me. She ... she claimed that she'd caught him coming out of my bedroom one night, that she knew he'd hurt me. She told me that that's why she killed him. But it's not true..."

The tears were flowing freely now, and Sara's well-built walls were visibly crumbling around her.

Deciding that this was no longer the right place for them to have this conversation, Catherine wrenched a twenty dollar bill from her pocket and threw it onto the table. They could keep the change.

Grabbing Sara's hand, she tugged the brunette to her feet and led her wordlessly out of the coffee shop into the warm Nevada sun.

She knew that Sara hadn't finished her story, and she was damn well going to hear the end of it eventually; but she had to put the girl's welfare first and right now what Sara needed most was somewhere private to break down.

She just hoped that she could get to end of the sad tirade before Sara managed to rebuild her defences, which were currently lying shattered beside their untouched coffee.


	26. Chapter 26

**Hey guys! Apologies for the long wait. I've been on holiday :) Any of my readers from Tennessee? I love your state! I want to move to Nashville 3**

 **x X x**

Catherine hadn't really expected Sara to agree to come inside once the brunette realised where they were. She hadn't uttered a word since Cath bundled her into her car, choosing instead to stare into her lap while she attempted to compose herself.

When they'd pulled up outside Catherine's house, Sara had looked at it for a long moment, weighing up her options, before eventually – reluctantly – following Catherine inside.

And having brought her here, Catherine suddenly found that she had no idea what to do next. So she had made coffee.

And now, she waited.

"After what happened with Melissa," Sara began at last after what felt like a lifetime of staring straight ahead, "I started to question whether my mother was telling the truth. She claimed that my father had been sexually abusing me, but I had no memory of that. I'd always assumed that I'd blocked it out, along with a lot of other things."

Catherine nodded in understanding.

"It's not uncommon for children to repress traumatic events, until something rekindles the memory later." She pointed out softly.

"Yeah, but that's not the memory I was repressing." Sara swallowed. She had calmed herself considerably in the car, but she still couldn't seem to stop her hands from shaking. Catherine watched her closely, studying how her lower lip had begun to tremble and her eyes were darting back and forth above Catherine's head.

"It wasn't my father who was abusing me." She finally said, her voice almost a whisper. "It was my mother."

If she heard Catherine's sharp intake of breath, she never reacted to it. Cath closed her eyes momentarily, shaking her head silently in shock.

"She wasn't trying to protect me from him." Sara continued absently. "He was trying to protect me from her. He'd found out what she was doing and he was going to take me away. That's why she killed him."

For the first time since leaving the elevator, Sara met Catherine's gaze directly.

"How do I deal with that?"

It took a few seconds for Catherine to realise that this was a genuine question and Sara was actually expecting an answer from her.

She opened and closed her mouth, without uttering a word.

In slow, measured movements, she shifted from the couch to sit on the coffee table, so she was facing Sara and had the brunette's legs pinned between her own.

"I can't answer that, honey." She replied honestly. "But I can tell you that hurting yourself isn't going to fix it."

"I know that." Sara sniffed, looking down at the hands which were resting on her legs and gently caressing her thighs through her jeans. "But it's the only way I know to calm myself down when things get too much. It's a release, I guess."

"I get that." Cath pursed her lips, drumming her fingertips lightly on Sara's legs. "But I still can't sit back and let you keep doing it. I love you too much; you have to understand that."

Sara looked up sharply, a wary look on her face.

"I don't." She mumbled.

"What?" Catherine frowned.

"I don't understand love." Sara shuffled back, attempting to move out of her reach and failing miserably.

When Catherine blinked at her, not fully understanding the statement, she sighed meekly.

"My mother used to tell me that she loved me, sometimes." She began. "It would be right after she'd hit me. She would be crying hysterically into a drink, apologising. A few hours later, she would be hitting me again. She was the only person who ever really said it to me. Then, when I went to college, I was barely 17. A boy in my class took me out for a drink a couple of times. One night, he told me that he loved me. And I didn't really know what that meant, so I believed him ..." She paused, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling in a helpless attempt to stop the tears threatening to fall. "We spent the night together. A week later, I saw him out with another girl."

Catherine felt her heart tightening at the sad little story. Sara met her gaze again behind her mask of tears.

"Please don't throw love at me, Catherine. I don't know what that means."

It was a pitiful request, but one that Catherine didn't even hesitate to ignore.

"I'm sorry, honey, but I can't help it." She smiled weakly, reaching out to wipe away Sara's tears with the pad of her thumbs. "I _do_ love you. And you don't get a say in that."

To Sara's surprise, Catherine leant forward, draped her arms across Sara's shoulders and pressed a light kiss to her cheek. The brunette blinked at her.

"I don't want to be like this anymore." She mumbled helplessly after a long moment. "But I don't know where to start. Every time I think I can trust someone, they prove me wrong."

Catherine, with her hands clasped loosely behind Sara's head, swallowed hard with the understanding that she was one of those people.

"Sara, I know that I've made some bad decisions where you're concerned." She acknowledged. "But I promise it was only because I care about you. Love makes you do stupid things sometimes – take that as a bit of free advice."

Despite her best efforts, Sara's lips twitched at the comment and Catherine smiled softly at having elicited a positive reaction.

"You do know that we love you, right?" She reiterated. "Me and the boys, and Grissom. We all love you, Sara. You need to know that."

Sara shrugged awkwardly out of her grip, sinking her gaze again.

"Don't you love us?" Catherine continued softly, almost holding her breath as she waited for the answer that she didn't know whether she wanted to hear.

Sara exhaled, tipping her head back and letting her eyes seek out a random spot on the ceiling.

"I wish I could answer that." She whispered sadly. "But I honestly don't know how to."


	27. Chapter 27

"You remember when we found out that Nick was being stalked." Catherine began, placing the mug of fresh coffee in Sara's hands and sitting down beside her. "How much of a panic we were in when we were racing to his house, because we couldn't get him on the phone."

"Yeah."

"How did you feel? What was going through your head?"

Sara exhaled, sitting back against the couch.

"I was scared." She answered with a soft frown. "I was terrified that something was going to happen to him, that we might lose him."

Catherine smiled softly and tapped her knee.

"That's love, honey. That's what it does to you." She explained. "It's that feeling of caring about someone so much that it physically hurts you when they're in pain."

Sara looked down into the dark liquid swirling around her mug.

"I know that feeling." She acknowledged softly.

"Of course you do." Catherine mused. "Because behind all those defences, you've got the sweetest heart in the world."

Sara made no obvious effort to acknowledge the comment, although Cath couldn't help but notice her cheeks tinting pink at the compliment.

"That's the way I felt when I saw what you'd done, how you'd hurt yourself." She continued. "It physically hurt me to see those marks on you."

"I'm sorry." Sara mumbled sheepishly, continuing to avoid her gaze. Catherine's lips twitched into a small smile.

"It's not the first time you've done that to me either, you know." She pointed out, nudging her companion. Finally, Sara did look up.

"When?"

"Well, the other night in the parking lot, obviously. And the lab explosion before that." Cath quirked an eyebrow at her pointedly. "Along with your little superhero act afterwards."

"You didn't say anything about that." Sara pointed out with a frown.

"I didn't need to. I heard that Brass chewed you out for that himself."

Sara laughed guiltily, earning her another nudge.

"And before that, too." Cath mused pensively. "Sid Goggle. That was the first time."

"The Strip Strangler case?" Sara frowned, shaking her head. "That was a couple of years ago."

"Yeah, I know." Cath agreed, clearing her throat. "After we closed the case, something just kept bugging me about it. Warrick had mentioned that you used to sign up for free trials at gyms, like the victims had, so I checked the sign-in sheet for Strong's Gym." She looked up, holding Sara's gaze firmly. "You were there three days before we arrested Goggle."

A multitude of emotions flashed through Sara's eyes as they held each other's stare for a long moment.

"Yes, I was." She agreed quietly at last.

"When we searched his house, we found evidence to suggest that he had already selected his next victim."

"You thought it was me?"

"Yes, I did." Catherine inhaled a shaky breath. "And it hit me like a bullet when I realised it. Because that was the first time I let myself admit how much I cared about you. I didn't want to feel that way about you, but I couldn't deny it after that."

They both fell quiet for a moment, absorbing this confession. When the silence was finally broken, it was Sara who spoke up.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course." Cath smiled weakly at the polite request.

"When we were in the elevator and you were talking about Stephanie – you said it wasn't something you proud of. Did you mean you and her...?"

"No." Catherine sat forward and placed her coffee mug on the table, although she immediately regretted it as she had nothing left to occupy her hands and she had to settle for toying with a loose thread on her sleeve. "I mean, my whole life back then isn't something I'm proud of, but ... Stephanie and I, we were good together."

"So, why didn't you leave Eddie like she wanted?"

"Because I was a coward." She answered honestly. "I didn't want to have to admit it to my family, my friends. I didn't want to be judged."

Sara was frowning as she explained this, her attention focused on a benign spot on the floor. Sensing that there had been more to the question than just idle curiosity, Cath nudged Sara gently.

"When I was fourteen, I started spending time with an older girl from school. I was young and naive and I just assumed we were friends. Until one day, she kissed me." The brunette recalled quietly. "My foster father saw us. Later on that night, he came into my room and told me that I wasn't allowed to see her again. When I argued with him, he hit me."

Catherine winced, shaking her head.

"He was so angry, and I couldn't understand why. I get it now – he knew my case history. He knew what my mother had done. He was trying to stop me from turning into..."

"Sara," Catherine cut her off abruptly with a firm hand on her arm. "Whoever you are, and whoever you choose to date, has nothing to do with anything your mother did to you."

"How do you know that?"

"Because it's biology, honey. Nothing happened to me when I was a child, but I still fell in love with a woman. And even if your mother did somehow influence it, so what? It's not a bad thing."

"I know that. I did grow up in San Francisco." The younger woman pointed out with a small shrug. "I just ... I guess I resisted it. I've never really felt comfortable with guys I've dated, but ..."

She doubted that Sara realised it at this moment, but Catherine was well aware that this was the most insight she had ever gained into her complicated young colleague. She was afraid to even breathe, in case she broke whatever spell they had temporarily found themselves under, but she couldn't stand to see her friend so lost.

Slowly, deliberately, she placed a hand over Sara's wrist and squeezed it gently until the girl looked up.

"Honey, take it from someone who's been there: you can't deny it forever." She assured her. "You don't have to admit it to anyone else. But you owe it to yourself to be honest to you."

x X x

"Alright, get it over with." Cath exhaled, stalking Grissom into his office.

He turned around, startled to find her behind him.

"Get what over with?" He asked, rounding his desk and sinking into his seat.

"The lecture." She threw her hands out. "I know you've got one prepared."

He frowned, scratching his chin absently.

"How's Sara doing?"

She blinked, unsure of whether this was the start of the lecture or merely a deflection.

"She's okay." She answered warily. "She's still trying to wrap her head around everything that's happened in the last few days."

"And how are things between the two of you?" He continued. "Have you talked?"

"Yes, we've talked." She sat down opposite him. "We're ... we'll be fine. It's just going to take some time."

He nodded appreciatively. They fell into silence for a moment, each quietly sizing the other up, before he took his glasses off and sat back.

"Catherine, you had to know that what you were doing was wrong." He offered at last by way of a question.

"Of course. But, I was worried about her and ... I guess I've never been very good at talking to her. If it was one of the boys, it would have been easier, but Sara..."

He stared at her for a long minute, scrutinising her answer.

"Yeah, me neither." He confessed quietly. She shot him a small smile, glad to hear him acknowledge it for once. "So, did you find out what's wrong?"

"Yeah, I did." She cleared her throat, appreciative of the change of subject. "She's dealing with it, in her own way."

"Is there anything we can do at work to help her?" He pressed, genuine concern in his voice.

"Maybe stay clear of certain cases for a while." She shrugged. "I don't think she needs to be dealing with any rape victims right now."

"No," he agreed with a sad frown. "That's something I can do, at least."

"Speaking of, are we any closer to finding out who attacked her in the parking lot?"

"Ahem." A little voice from the threshold cut off Grissom's response and he looked up with mild irritation on his face.

"What is it, Greg?" He asked tersely.

"I'm sorry to interrupt." The lab tech began, entering the room. "But I think I can answer that question."

"You got a match?" Gil asked, rising from his seat.

"Yeah. It took longer because I put my other cases on hold while I worked this one. Ironically, if I'd worked them first, we could have had this a couple of days ago..."

"Greg," Cath silenced him with a wave of her hand.

"Right, sorry." He handed Grissom the report. "The DNA near her car was a match to one of the samples collected from that protest group Brass broke up."

"Seriously?" Catherine's eyes widened and she snatched the report of Grissom to read it for herself.

"What protest group?" The supervisor interjected.

"You remember I said that Sara already had a head injury?" Cath explained absently, her attention glued to the words in front of her. "She was assaulted while collecting samples from a far-right group. One of them knocked her to the ground."

"Yeah, and according to the DNA," Greg explained, "that's the guy who raped her."


	28. Chapter 28

Catherine was already half way out of the door in Greg's wake when Grissom called her back.

"I'm afraid I can't let you go." He said, his expression suddenly harder than before.

She stalled, frowning at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Nick can meet Brass at PD." Grissom deflected. Catherine shook her head, taking a few steps back him.

"Gil, this guy raped Sara. _Our_ Sara." She stated in a tone that came out harsher than she intended. "I want in on that interrogation."

"I know." He conceded, holding up his hands. "But I can't let you."

For the first time, she managed to identify the look that he had had in his eye since she first walked in. Guilt.

"What are you saying, Gil?" She asked firmly.

He exhaled tiredly, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. It was a sign that she recognised as the onset of a migraine.

"Catherine, I talked to the Sheriff. I have to put you on suspension."

"What?" She gasped, stuttering to find something more eloquent to say. "Why?"

"You used your position to find out confidential information about a colleague, and then shared it with another colleague."

She blinked, shaking her head at the assertion.

"I didn't share it with anyone." She stated, earning her a mildly incredulous look.

"I talked to Brass." He explained. "He told me that you had found out some information about her family and that you discussed it with him. I'm sorry, but I don't have a choice."

She stared at him for a long minute, attempting to establish whether he was telling the truth. Was this really the Sheriff's decision, or had Grissom thrown her to the wolves?

Deciding that she'd rather not know, she straightened up slightly and attempted to convey a strength that she didn't feel.

"For how long?"

"At the moment," Grissom pursed his lips tightly, "indefinitely."

x X x

Nick stalked down the hallway and into the room without even slowing down.

"Mr Jones," he declared, slamming his fists down on the table. "You're a piece of work, you know that?"

Brass, already sat opposite the surly suspect, sent Nick a warning look which went completely unheeded.

"I already told him," Harvey Jones nodded towards Brass. "I invoke my fifth amendment rights."

Nick sneered at him, sliding into a chair.

"Yeah, I'm sure you know all about your rights." He spat. I looked into your group – you guys are good. You go just far enough without breaking any racial hatred laws."

Jones, apparently already bored with the conversation, began examining his fingernails.

"Freedom of speech, Mr..."

"Nevermind." Nick snapped, refusing to give him his name. "But that's alright, because I'm not here to talk about your beliefs anyway."

"No?" Jones shimmied upright in his chair and placed both elbows on the table, feigning interest. "Then enlighten me, what are we here to talk about."

Between his smug grin and the complete lack of any evidence of remorse, Nick was barely resisting the urge to smack the guy. But instead, he reached into his pocket and then brought his hand slamming down on the table, revealing the knife that Greg had found under Sara's car, encased in an evidence bag.

"We're here to talk about how you held that to my friend's throat while you raped her." He said in a voice that was so eerily calm.

For the briefest second, he thought he saw a flicker of fear in the man's eyes, before he quickly replaced it with arrogance.

"That's not my knife." He shrugged. "And I didn't rape nobody."

"No, you didn't rape 'nobody'." Jim agreed coolly, finally speaking up. "You raped somebody very important to us. And that was a really stupid thing to do, Harvey."

"I already told you," Jones leant back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I didn't rape anybody, and I'm not answering any more questions. So, unless you've got any evidence to hold me ..?"

"You mean like DNA?" Brass offered, opening his folder and sliding the paperwork across the desk.

"You mean the DNA you took from me when you broke up our _legal_ protest meeting?" He asked, barely sparing the print-out a second glance. "And you wonder why people don't trust the police. Wait, don't tell me, you planted my fingerprints on that knife too?"

"You watch too much TV." Nick scoffed. "I supposed we planted your semen on the floor under Sara's car, too?"

Jones shrugged wordlessly, indicating that he was done co-operating.

Shooting Nick a sideways glace, Brass nodded, a silent message that they were ready to bring out their ace card.

Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, he produced a neatly folded piece of paper, which he took his time opening and smoothing out. Jones watched him with one wary eye as he finally placed it carefully on the table in front of the suspect.

"What is this?" He demanded without bothering to read it.

"It's a warrant." Jim explained calmly.

Jones sat up straight and snatched up the paperwork, scanning the document until he found what they were asking for. He choked out a bitter laugh, flicking his gaze between the two in shock.

"You want me to drop my pants?" He scoffed. "You can't do that."

"Actually we can." Nick retorted. "Sara claims that she bit you. The warrant is to see whether you have any marks on your penis consistent with that."

"Unless you're going to claim that we planted those too?" Jim asked sweetly.

When Jones failed to move, Nick quirked an impatient eyebrow at him.

"What's the matter? Need some help?"

Without waiting for an invitation, the fourth man in the room stepped out of the shadows he had been lurking in. Mitch slammed a hand down onto the suspect's shoulder, startling the man.

"Stand up." The gruff officer snarled, tightening his grip. Jones stared up at him for a long moment, before turning back to Brass.

"I want a lawyer."

"That's fine." Jim pursed his lips. "Officer Mitchell will keep you company while you wait."

As Nick and Brass stood up, Jones attempted to rise up from his seat as well, but was held in place.

"Hey, I want a white officer." He snapped aggressively, wrenching his shoulder free. "I still have rights!"

Nick paused in the threshold, whirling back towards him.

"You have the right to remain silent." He pointed out. "If I were you, I would exercise that right now."

As the door swung closed behind them, the suspect once again tried to rise up out of his seat, until he was once against forced back down.

"Take your hands off me." He snarled.

Mitch declined the instruction, squeezing his shoulder tighter.

"Relax." He stated harshly. "You're not my type."

x X x

"Well, given the week you've had, I expected you to look worse."

Catherine shot her sister an odd look as she poured their coffees.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" She queried, sitting down and sliding one mug over to her companion.

"No, it's an observation." Nancy corrected, accepting her drink and curling her hands around it. "How's Sara?"

"She's okay, I guess." Catherine shrugged. "We caught her attacker today."

"Good." Nancy nodded.

"Of course, when I say we, I mean _them_ , since I'm apparently banned from the lab."

Nancy's lips twitched at the bitter comment. After receiving the phone call from Catherine about her suspension, she had come over as soon as possible; only to find her big sister remarkably composed. It was a relief to know that, beneath that uncharacteristically calm exterior, there was still some anger bubbling away.

"And how are things between the two of you?" She asked, electing not to dwell on her bad day too much.

Catherine pursed her lips, a frown settling on her face.

"Honestly, I'm not sure." She confessed, sinking her gaze into her coffee. "We talked, and she opened up to me about her therapy and ..."

"And?"

"No, never mind." Cath sat back and held up her hands to dismiss the train of thought.

"Hey, come on." Nancy pressed. "What is it?"

Catherine chewed on her lower lip for a moment, debating whether to confide in her sibling. She suspected that she knew what response she would get, but at the same time she could use a second opinion...

"I don't know, it might be nothing;" she conceded, "but, it kind of felt like we had _a moment_."

"A moment?" Nancy echoed. "You mean, romantically?"

"I don't know." Cath held her hands up again. "I might be reading too much into it."

Nancy pushed her mug aside and reached across the table to grip her sister's hands.

"Catherine, you know that you cannot act on your feelings for her."

Cath scowled, wrenching her hands back.

"I never said I was going to act on it." She snapped. "I just said we had a moment."

"Yeah, but I know you." Nancy pointed out sternly. "Of course, you've never listened to my advice before, so why should you start now?"

"Nancy, Sara's so confused right now that I don't think she knows what she wants." Catherine exhaled. "The last thing I want to do is make things harder for her."

"Good."

"Not that it's going to matter if I get fired."

"Do you really think they will?"

"I don't know why you're surprised?" Catherine frowned. "You were the one that said they had the grounds to fire me."

"Yeah, but I didn't actually think they would. I mean, you've screwed up before, but Grissom's always covered for you."

"This time it might be out of his hands." Catherine shook her head sadly. "I think I might have just run out of lives."

x X x

"Catherine knows that what she did was wrong," Grissom insisted. "But I don't think it justifies firing her."

"Gil, I know that you have certain ... affections, for your team." Sheriff Atwater sighed. "But you have to stop letting that get in the way of your supervision."

"Catherine is a good CSI." Grissom insisted calmly. "And whatever mistakes she's made, she did have Sara's best interests at heart."

"She abused her position, she failed to follow proper welfare procedure regarding concerns for a colleague and she shared confidential information with another colleague." He snapped impatiently. "Add that to the fact that she interfered with the investigation into her ex-husband and she blew up the lab, not to mention whatever went wrong with the Sam Braun case ..."

"Alright." Grissom held up his hands. "But, she's too valuable to lose. I need her."

"You need an assistant?" He paraphrased. "Promote Stokes."

"Rory, I can't fire her."

"Look, I don't think I'm making myself clear Gil." He snapped. "You don't get a say in this!"

"What about me?" The argument fell silent at the soft question and both men turned towards the door, where Sara stepped out from the shadows and levelled Grissom a steely stare. "Do I get a say?"


	29. Chapter 29

**Been too long (way, way too long) since I updated. Hope you like**

 **x X x**

Catherine fidgeted outside the door, uncharacteristically uncertain of herself.

She had almost bailed out several times, but eventually she had gotten up the courage to knock.

When the door finally swung open, Sara stared at her for a long minute – perhaps weighing up her motive for being here – before offering a simple greeting.

"Hey."

"Hi," Cath replied awkwardly. "I'm sorry for just turning up like this; I won't keep you long."

To her surprise, Sara offered a small smile and stepped aside to let her enter.

Inside, Cath took a moment to compose herself, before turning to face her expectant colleague.

"I just came round to say thank you." She explained. "Grissom called, he said I can go back to work."

Sara nodded simply, and it was clear from her expression that she already knew that.

"He also said that you had something to do with that."

"Yeah, I guess." Sara shrugged.

Catherine didn't really know what kind of reaction she had expected, but the modest response gave nothing away regarding Sara's feelings on the matter and pushed her into continuing with a nervous laugh.

"I don't know what you said, but I know that I don't deserve it."

Sara chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm still upset with you." She finally offered. "But, I am grateful for what you did to help me."

"Help you?" Cath echoed, raising an eyebrow. "Like prying into your personal life and manipulating you into confiding in me and ..."

"You know what for." Sara cut her off quietly. Her voice was perplexingly calm, but there was something burning behind her eyes that Catherine couldn't quite make out. They held each other's gaze for a long moment, before Sara's slid off to the side. "I can count on one hand the number of people who've gone to bat for me over the years; and most of them have had an ulterior motive."

Catherine narrowed her eyes, unsure where Sara was going with this. When the brunette looked up again, the look in her dark orbs was still there, but it was clearer this time. Gratitude.

"I don't like the way you went about it. But I do know that you weren't trying to hurt me."

The confession was delivered with the same soft, emotionless tone as before, but it caused Catherine to release a breath she hadn't even realised she was holding.

"I wasn't." She confirmed almost pleadingly. "Sara, I'd never intentionally do anything to hurt you."

"I know that." Sara nodded, glancing away again with a gentle frown on her face. Catherine watched her for a few seconds, until the brunette finally looked back up.

For a minute, Cath thought she was going to say something else, but whatever it was died on her lips and she gestured weakly towards the kitchen instead.

"Would you like some coffee?"

x X x

Nick did a double take when she stalked into the room, sharing an obvious look with Warrick.

"Hey, you back on?" The dark-skinned CSI asked hopefully.

"I certainly am." She agreed, reaching past Nick to the coffee pot and pouring herself a cup. "Where's Grissom?"

"In his office, talking to Ecklie." The Texan answered with more than a hint of suspicion in his voice. "I thought they suspended you?"

"They lifted it." She answered bluntly, taking her coffee to the centre bench and sliding onto a stool.

"So, all that stuff about you and Sara, her counsellor – that wasn't true?"

Catherine stilled, her coffee cup halfway raised to her lips, and turned slowly back to face him. Warrick, leaning against the arm of the couch, was also watching her with intrigue. Realising that her guilty secret was no longer secret after all, she sighed.

"Yes, it's true." She admitted. "But its okay, Sara and I have talked about it."

"Okay?" Nick blinked. "So, she's fine with you coming back to work?"

"It was her idea." Cath explained. At his incredulous expression, she shook her head. "This is really nothing to do with you; it's between the two of us."

"Give me a break, Catherine." Nick exclaimed with a bitter laugh. "While Grissom was away you jumped all over everyone who so much as breathed on Sara. What the hell was in that counselling file anyway?"

"You know I'm not going to answer that." She replied tersely. "And yes, I know I was a little over-protective of her, but ..."

"Over-protective." Nick snorted.

"I was trying to look out for her." Catherine continued, fighting to keep her anger in check.

"Catherine," Nick walked towards her, his hands outstretched in question. "You breached her privacy. How is she – how are any of us supposed to trust you now?"

She opened her mouth to answer the question, but nothing came out. Her silence was interrupted by the sound of Grissom clearing his throat from the threshold.

"Nick, 419." He said without preamble, although it was clear from his expression that he had overheard the argument.

The young man looked between the two supervisors for a moment, before rolling his eyes in frustration at the situation. He stalked across the room and snatched the report from Gil's hand on his way out of the door.

Grissom looked between his two remaining CSIs. He had planned on putting Catherine and Nick together, but on second thoughts...

"Warrick, you'd better back him up." He said at last.

"You got it." Warrick nodded, sloping to the door with the resigned expression of a man who knew he was in for a long night.

Catherine waited until he had also vacated the room, before finally daring to meet Grissom's gaze.

He was still wearing the same cold look of indifference that he had when he had suspended her. It was a look which cut deeper than any anger or disappointment would have done.

She didn't speak, waiting patiently for him to ask the questions that she knew must be burning on his tongue.

Had she spoken to Sara? Were they okay? Would they be able to continue working together?

Instead, he straightened up and said in a cool, clipped tone;

"I'll meet you at the car."


	30. Chapter 30

"I just don't get it." Nick muttered. "I mean, after what Catherine did to Sara, how can she just come back like nothing happened?"

"I don't know," Warrick mused absently. "But I guess it's between the two of them."

"Cath crossed a line, man. She should never have read that file." Nick spat. "That's Sara's private business."

"Yeah, I know." Warrick straightened up and stretched, feeling his back snap with a satisfying crack. "But you know Catherine; she wouldn't do anything to hurt Sara."

"You sure about that?" Nick challenged. "I mean, it's not like they haven't butted heads in the past."

"Unlike you and me, huh cowboy?" Warrick teased, causing a small laugh to bubble out of Nick.

"Yeah, alright, but when they go at it, they really mean business."

"Come on, Nick, you haven't fallen for that act have you?" Warrick chuckled, shaking his head at the Texan's naivety. "Cath and Sara love each other, man; they're just both too stubborn to admit it."

"I just don't get it." Nicky shook his head, at a loss to put his discomfort into words.

Realising that his mate was not going to drop this subject, Warrick held up his hands.

"Look, I tell you what. When we're done here, we'll take everything back to the lab, get it locked down and then we'll swing by Sara's apartment and take her out for breakfast." He suggested. "Hear her side of things."

Nick pursed his lips, seeming to consider this for a moment, before nodding in agreement.

"Yeah, yeah that's a good idea." He mused. "It'll be nice to get a straight answer about all of this."

x X x

Without any warning, she suddenly threw her fingerprint brush into her kit, causing a tiny dust storm to rise up from inside the metal case.

"Alright, I can't take this anymore." She snapped, causing Grissom's head to shoot up.

"What?"

"This!" Catherine waved her hands in his general direction. "The silent treatment. Will you just say whatever it is that you want to say to me and get it over with?"

Slowly, cautiously, Grissom took off his goggles and raised his eyebrows at her in question.

"I don't know that I have anything to say to you, Catherine." He offered in his usual, inexplicably calm tone of voice.

She rolled her eyes, snapping off her gloves.

"Alright, I know that I messed up. But Sara's forgiven me; I don't understand why you can't?"

"Sara agreed for you to come back to work." He corrected pointedly. "I wouldn't say that she's forgiven you."

Catherine stared at him for a long moment, attempting to gauge the emotion behind his cold words.

"Is this because I kissed her?" She asked at last.

The question appeared to startle him and he looked around, seemingly unsure of himself, before his gaze finally settled back on her. She was still watching him through narrowed eyes, awaiting an answer.

"Catherine," he licked his lips. "Do you know why I defended you to the Sheriff?"

After so many years, she was used to him answering a question with a question, but that was not something she quite expected from him.

"No." She shifted her weight, cocking her head to the side.

"Because I thought that, deep down, you had Sara's best interests at heart."

"I did." She frowned, feeling the same indignant anger rise up her cheeks as she had when Nick had contested her return to work earlier in the evening. "Of course I did."

"Always?" He challenged. "I can think of at least three times when you've warned me off Sara."

She nodded. She remembered all three quite clearly as well.

"Yeah, I told you to stop playing games with her emotions before you caused irreparable damage." She reiterated.

"You told me to stay away because she deserves more than a workaholic." He paraphrased carefully. "And I stayed away, because I agreed with you. But now ..."

"What?" She pressed, throwing her hands out. "You think I warned you off because I wanted her for myself?"

"Do you?"

The question hung in the air, heavy and threatening. For a moment, she considered refusing to answer. But something about the look in Grissom's eyes made her reconsider. He wasn't angry; if anything he seemed genuinely concerned.

"I ... I don't know what I want." She admitted. "But I stand by what I said to you. Sara deserves more than you can give her – and in light of what I now know about her, I think that even more. She deserves all the love and affection in the world."

x X x

They cast a glance back at the table, where Sara was toying nervously with a napkin while chatting to Greg.

Upon hearing the plan, the young lab tech had insisted on tagging along.

"She still seems pretty shaken up." Nick noted with a frown.

"Yeah, well it's been a rough few days for her." Warrick pointed out. "So, don't go berating her. We came to hear her side of things, not to demand war and peace."

"Hey, I have no intention of browbeating it out of her." Nick stated, grabbing up two of the plates and letting Warrick get the other two.

"Alright, blueberry pancakes for the lady." The Texan crooned, placing the plate in front of Sara. "Enjoy sweetheart, you look like you need them."

Sara smiled, declining to respond to the comment. It was true, she hadn't eaten much in the last couple of days, but she wasn't about to admit that out loud.

For a couple of minutes, they ate in largely companionable silence, save for a few comments about their food.

However, it didn't take long for Nick to bring up the subject that had been on the tip of his tongue since they collected Sara from her apartment.

"Hey Sar," he cleared his throat around a mouthful of bacon. "This whole thing with Catherine ..."

Sara flicked her eyes up, her expression suddenly turning guarded.

"What about it?" She asked cagily.

"Well, we were just wondering ..." Nick cast his gaze towards the boys, seeking some encouragement. "Are you really happy with her coming back to work?"

"Well, yeah." Sara put her fork down and picked up her coffee mug, nursing it between both hands. "I mean, I know she did something wrong, but it was for the right reasons."

"You sure?" Greg asked. "It's a pretty big breach of trust."

Sara took a moment, considering her next words carefully under the boys' intense scrutiny.

"Catherine and I ... are a lot more similar than I realised." She said slowly at last. "I don't like what she did. But I appreciate why she did it."


	31. Chapter 31

**Sort of a filler chapter, to move the story along a bit. Hope you're all still enjoying it**

 **x X x**

"Hey Sara!" Greg darted out of the lab into her path, causing her to flinch against her will. Realising his mistake, he quickly held up his hands and took a small step back out of her personal space. "Sorry."

"It's okay." She smiled weakly. "Still a little jumpy, I guess."

He nodded in understanding. Quickly remembering why he had pounced on her in the first place, he gestured into the DNA lab.

"I have your results." He ushered her inside, where she raised a curious eyebrow at the usually playful tech's frazzled demeanour.

"We get a match?" She asked hopefully.

"Sort of." Greg frowned, the results print-out trembling in his hands. "I ran the blood sample from your crime scene through CODIS and ... I didn't get a name, but I got a hit on a cold case."

"Really?" She asked, her intrigue growing to excitement at the prospect of solving two cases in one.

He handed her the piece of paper, watching as her trained eyes scanned over the words and a look of realisation slowly crossed her features. She looked up, meeting his equally conflicted gaze.

"No?"

x X x

It had been a long, slow night for Catherine, resulting in more trips to the coffee pot than she cared to admit.

On the fourth or fifth, she was pleasantly surprised to find that she wasn't alone on her break and smiled brightly at the other occupant of the room.

"Hey," she greeted chirpily.

Sara looked up, startled from her thoughts, and mumbled an indecipherable response.

"I feel like I haven't seen you properly in days. How are you?" Cath continued, meandering to the coffee pot suddenly in a much better mood.

It was true, she hadn't seen much of the brunette. Although it had been a couple of weeks since Sara returned to work, there remained a current of unease running through the graveyard team and Grissom was still reluctant to pair them together.

But that didn't mean they couldn't share a coffee break together.

"Um, I'm fine." Sara lied. "Everything's fine."

Not quite buying the stuttered response, Cath took a step closer and made to look at her case notes.

"You need some help?" She offered, noting the mass of paperwork Sara seemed to be wading through.

"No!" The response was immediate and a little too blunt for the blonde's liking. "No, I'm ... I need to go."

Sara quickly began gathering up her notes into a haphazard pile, steadfastly avoiding eye contact. Catherine frowned at her actions.

"Hey, what's wrong?" She asked, taking a step closer. Sara instinctively moved backwards, inadvertently backing herself into the bench.

"Nothing." She mumbled, though it was obviously a lie. "I just ... I need to go."

"Sara, wait..."

But it was too late. Before Catherine could even finish her sentence, the girl had fled the room in a flurry of paperwork, leaving Cath alone to ponder a depressing thought that had just planted itself in her mind.

She had assumed that the distance between herself and Sara was being enforced by Grissom because he was still angry with her; but what if it was really at Sara's behest? What if the brunette simply wasn't ready to work with her yet?

She sank onto the stool Sara had just vacated, letting the sad idea settle in the pit of her stomach.

x X x

Sara relocated to a quieter part of the lab, taking a few moments to spread her paperwork back out across the desk in some sort of order.

She knew that she should take her new findings straight to Grissom. As the head of the department, he needed to know about the developments before anyone else. That was protocol.

But it wasn't _right_.

The case was new to her, although looking at the images before her she found herself recalling certain details that Warrick had told her about it.

The knife, of course. And the gloves – although they could be ruled out now.

But it was the body that was haunting her. That beautiful, curved dancer's body ... so much like some she knew.

Closing her eyes, Sara let her head fall into her hands as the memory of that conversation swam into her mind.

" _The night she died, I took an overdose..."_

x X x

"Hey guys," Cath ambled into the layout room, casting a casual glance over their evidence without really taking any of it in.

"Hey Cath," Warrick greeted, while Nick settled for a half-hearted nod. "What's up?"

"Have either of you seen Sara around here?" She asked.

"No, why?" Nick answered, not bothering to look up from his notes.

"Well, I just saw her in the break room and she took off as soon as I walked in." Cath scowled. "She wouldn't even look at me."

Nick shrugged, making no overt effort to care. Warrick, at least, tried to offer some sympathy.

"You know what she gets like when she's wrapped up in a case." He offered. "She's probably just in her own headspace."

"Maybe." Catherine frowned, unconvinced. "I just ... I feel like there's this divide between us and I don't know how to close it. And Grissom is doing nothing to help by keeping us on separate cases."

"It's not going to happen overnight." Nick pointed out a little more harshly than he intended, causing Catherine to shoot him a hurt look.

"I know that." She said. "But things have been going alright until today."

"I'm sure she's just having a bad day." Warrick tried again, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing it reassuringly. "Just give her some space, she'll come around."

Accepting the advice, albeit with slumped shoulders, Catherine sloped back into the hallway.

Once she was gone, Warrick threw his mate a look.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked, shaking his head.

"Me?" Nick asked. "Nothing's wrong with me. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that what she did was okay."

"Hey, Sara's moved on. I think you can too."

"Has she?" Nick challenged. "Because it sure doesn't sound that way to me."

x X x

Deciding to take the boys advice, even if she didn't want to, Catherine called off her search for her elusive colleague, settled herself back in the empty lab she had commandeered as her office for the evening and resumed her laborious paperwork.

Between Nick's bitterness towards her and Grissom's determination to bore her to death with dull cases, she felt well and truly punished for her actions. But that hadn't bothered her, as long as she and Sara could remain on speaking terms.

But if she had lost that too...

Several more pages into her paperwork, she was still contemplating what could have suddenly put Sara offside, when a soft noise caught her attention and she turned to find the very woman watching her cautiously from the doorway.

"Hey," she greeted tentatively.

Sara shuffled into the room, visibly unsure of herself.

"I ... I don't know whether I should be doing this." She began tentatively, causing Catherine to sit back and fix her with her full attention. "In fact, I know that I shouldn't be doing this. But, I think you have a right to see it before anyone else."

"See what." Cath asked curiously.

Sara had a reputation for going rogue, but actually she was probably the biggest stickler for following protocol in the department, especially where her professional integrity was concerned. If she was willing to breach that, it must be for a good reason.

She was clutching her case notes protectively to her chest – the same notes that she had so hurriedly hidden from Catherine's view in the break room.

Only now, she relinquished them to her colleague, open to the page of the DNA results that Greg had provided her earlier.

For a whole minute, Catherine didn't react and Sara began to wonder whether she was seeing the significance of the results, when the blonde quietly uttered one word.

"Stephanie."


	32. Chapter 32

Grissom raised his eyes from the piece of paper to the two women standing before him.

"I want this case." Catherine said before he could utter a word.

"Catherine," he took off his glasses slowly. "You know that you can't work this."

"Why not? I re-opened her case last year and you had no objections then."

"To you re-examining the evidence, not running the case from scratch." He corrected pointedly.

"Come on, Gil. She was my best friend." Catherine almost pleaded, taking a step closer to the desk.

"Exactly. You're too close." He insisted. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you that you're already on thin ice with the Sheriff after blowing up the lab and compromising Sam's case. If you mess up another case because of a conflict of interest..."

"I won't." Catherine interjected before he could finish his prophecy.

"Grissom, I'm happy to let Catherine take this one." Sara, loitering at the back of the office, jumped in. "I can back her up."

Grissom looked between the two of them, before settling on Catherine's hopeful expression. It was, he realised with a degree of surprise, the first time they had ganged up on him like this in a very long time. A familiar sense of futility washed over him and his shoulders visibly drooped.

For all that the night shift women could fight like cats when they wanted to, they were an indestructible force when they actually worked together.

"Alright, you can work the case." He said, well aware that they weren't really waiting for his permission anyway. "But Sara is still lead on this; you don't handle any of the evidence without her say-so."

Without waiting for further instruction, Catherine turned on her heel and stalked out. Sara nodded wordlessly at Grissom, before turning to follow her.

"Sara," he called her back. "Are you going to be okay working together?"

Sara's lips twitched into a half smile.

"She needs to do this." She replied, evading his question. "I can't take that away from her."

x X x

Catherine cleared her throat, breaking Sara's intense concentration.

"Thank you," she offered quietly. "I appreciate you coming to me first with this."

Sara nodded, turning her attention immediately back to her work.

"I promise I won't try to take over." Catherine continued, feeling the need to keep the conversation going, if for no other reason than to ease the awkward silence. "It's still your case."

"It's fine, Cat." Sara assured her coolly. "Stephanie was important to you. It's only right you get justice for her."

As emotionless as Sara's tone was, Catherine heard the crack in her voice and smiled weakly in gratitude.

"Thank you." She reiterated softly.

x X x

"Didn't you help Catherine with the Watson case last year?"

"Yeah," Warrick scratched his jaw absently. "Man, that case really got to Cath."

"Do you think it's such a good idea that she and Sara work this case?" Nick pressed.

"Why not?" Warrick challenged, placing his hands flat on the table. "Come on, Nick; they can work together."

"I know, but ..." he trailed off, shaking his head as the words he was looking evaded him.

"Hey," Warrick chastised firmly. "Cath needs to do this. Sara gets that. If she didn't, she wouldn't have taken the case to her in the first place."

Nick mused on this for a moment, cocking his head to the side.

"I guess." He drawled. "What's the deal with Catherine and this Stephanie girl anyway?"

"They were friends." Warrick replied calmly, resuming his work. Nick scrutinised his mate for a moment, picking up on the void in his answer but electing not to call him out on it just yet.

x X x

"Thanksgiving next week." Catherine stated randomly after a period of silence.

Sara hummed in agreement, continuing to stare at her notes.

"You got plans?" Cath pressed.

"Yeah." Sara answered without looking up. "I'm going to spend it with my family. That's what people do on Thanksgiving, right? Play happy families?"

Catherine inhaled, picking up on the sarcasm in Sara's blunt response.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I didn't think..."

"It's fine." Sara cut her off. "I got over it a long time ago. Thanksgiving, Christmas ... they're just another day now."

Catherine dropped her head sadly.

"They don't have to be, you know." She offered, flicking her eyes up to peer at her colleague from beneath her lashes. Sara stilled, taking a couple of deep breaths.

"I'll go check in with Hodges." She declared at last, pushing herself away from the bench. "He should have our results by now."

Catherine's heart sank, but she nodded slowly, watching the brunette stalk out into the corridor.

Exhaling, she shook her head. Thanksgiving was a time to be thankful for all the things in your life, but Sara had a point – what did she have to be thankful for?

She had no real family to speak of, no happy childhood memories to look back on and not even any particularly close friendships. Sure, she got on well with the boys, but how well did they really know her?

Certainly not as well as Catherine did, that's for sure. But Sara hardly considered her a friend right now.

But Catherine was thankful for Sara's presence in her life, even if the brunette didn't reciprocate. Yet.

Checking over her shoulder to make sure the coast was clear, she slid her cell phone out of her pocket and dialled a familiar number.


	33. Chapter 33

Sara stepped out of the shower, squinting through the steam as she reached for her towel hanging on the corner of the cubicle wall.

As she wrapped it around herself, stepping out of the warm haze into the cool of the dressing area, she was startled to find a figure sitting quietly on the bench. Catherine wasn't looking directly at her, but she tilted her head back and released a sigh when Sara emerged. She hadn't heard a sound, so she couldn't even begin to guess how long she'd been there.

"Hey." She greeted simply.

"What are you doing in here?" Sara asked, grasping her towel tighter around her body.

"Waiting for you." Cath answered easily, flicking her eyes briefly towards her colleague, before fixing them on the wall again.

Sara remained where she was for a moment as she debated what to do next.

"Do you have to wait in here?" She asked at last, moving so she was stood behind her colleague in an attempt to reduce the awkwardness of the situation she had found herself in.

"I wanted to talk to you in private." Catherine explained, dropping her head. "And some people don't seem to want to leave me alone with you right now."

Sara nodded slowly in understanding of who she was talking about.

"They're just being protective." She said with a touch of defensiveness, crossing her arms. The cold air of the room was beginning to settle into her skin.

"Oh I know." Catherine agreed. "And it's good, I like that they're looking out for you. It's just hard to get chance to talk to you with everyone scrutinising us."

"Okay." Sara agreed with a hint of scepticism as she tentatively dropped her towel to her waist and began dressing as hurriedly as she could. "So, what did you want to talk to me about?"

Catherine was discreet enough to keep her back turned, but she lifted her head again and released a sigh.

"I wanted to say thank you." She offered. "You didn't have to go to bat for me with Grissom. I know he doesn't want me on this case."

"Yeah, well." Sara shrugged, tugging on her jeans underneath her towel. "Grissom's never lost someone that he loved like you did with Stephanie."

It was said quite coolly, but it caused Catherine to turn in surprise, dancing her gaze over Sara's now half-dressed body.

"No, I guess he hasn't." She agreed softly.

Sara reached for her shirt on the bench and caught her eye, a small blush creeping up her cheeks. Catherine picked up the garment and held it out to her, not turning around this time. Her eyes dropped instinctively to Sara's stomach, where those telltale scars still lay.

They were the thing that had started this whole mess.

"Thank you." Sara mumbled, turning her back to pull it on.

After a few seconds of deliberation, Catherine stood up and walked carefully over to her, heels clicking on the tiled floor.

"It does mean a lot to me. I hope you know that." She reiterated. "And the last thing I'd want to do is cause a problem between you and Grissom."

"Grissom ... he's a scientist." Sara pointed out with a small shrug as she buttoned up her shirt. "He lives in a theoretical world, where everything makes sense. Real life just doesn't work like that. It's more ... chaotic."

As she was speaking, Catherine had reached out and removed Sara's hair from its untidy bun, letting the curls cascade over her shoulders. The brunette's breath had hitched, but her muscles remained relaxed as Cath's fingertips brushed against her neck.

Sara, now fully dressed, finally turned to face her, simultaneously stepping out of her reach.

"You need to work this case; even if he doesn't understand why." She said softly.

Catherine nodded, temporarily silenced by Sara's astute observations. Before she had chance to offer a response, the brunette had gathered up her things and disappeared back into the locker room, leaving Catherine stood alone in the residual wisps of steam.

x X x

After their uncomfortable encounter in the showers, Catherine almost expected Sara to avoid her for a while.

So, as she parked herself in the layout room surrounded by all the evidence in the case, she was surprised when Sara strolled in, wordlessly placed two cups of coffee on the table and sat down beside her.

Catherine shot her a grateful smile, but Sara had already picked up a folder and was engrossed in the results. Inwardly chuckling to herself, Catherine accepted the coffee and took a long mouthful, continuing to watch her colleague from the corner of her eye.

"You've stopped cutting." She stated at last, causing Sara to still.

"Yes, I have." The brunette agreed tensely.

"Good." Cath asserted softly. "That's really good."

"Do you have the trace results there?" Sara asked, attempting to end the conversation. Catherine passed her the results sheet, never tearing her gaze from her colleague's firmly set jaw.

"I meant what I said before, in your apartment." She continued. "If you start to feel like that again, I want you to call me first."

"I know." Sara agreed in a clipped tone, refusing to let any emption seep into her voice. Sensing that she was beginning to push her luck with the cagey woman, Cath debated leaving it there, but decided to go for one more try.

"Will you spend Thanksgiving with us?"

The question fell between them like a rock, as Sara's head shot up from the results page she had been scrutinising, her eyes wide and startled.

"What?"

"Thanksgiving." Catherine repeated optimistically. "You said that you don't have plans. I'd like you to spend it with me and Lindsey."

Sara continued to stare at her for a long moment with such intensity that Catherine would have sworn that she was looking right through her.

"Sand."

That was it. Suddenly, she jumped to her feet and scampered out of the room, leaving Catherine sitting bewildered at the bench, the cup of coffee still clasped between her hands.

"Sand?" She called at Sara's back, but the younger woman had already vanished.

Deflating, Catherine propped her head up on the bench sadly.

"I should have asked her in the shower." She noted to herself. "At least she couldn't run away from me there."


	34. Chapter 34

**Sad chapter for Catherine, but things will start to look up soon.**

 **I hope everyone is keeping safe out there!**

 **x X x**

Sara hadn't answered her timid invitation.

But, ironically, it was a different offer she had made to the brunette which had given her the brainwave they needed to solve the case.

The last time Catherine invited Sara somewhere – when they were still friends, before everything went wrong – she had asked her to accompany them to the aquarium.

The aquarium ... where they had sand.

There had been sand at Stephanie's scene too, but because she was found outside in an alley, in a desert state, nothing much had been thought of it at the time. There was sand all over Las Vegas.

However, beach girl Sara Sidle had had a hunch which, miraculously, had paid off. After paying a visit to Hodges, she established that it wasn't desert sand under Stephanie's body. It was the same sand that had been at the more recent murder case. Sand, with traces of shellfish.

Thankfully, Sara's knowledge of sea creatures and their diets had proved useful for more than just helping Lindsey with her homework.

After establishing that the sand must have come from the aquarium, it had been really easy to get a list of names of staff members who had been working there in 1988 and was still working there a week ago when Sara's victim was murdered...

As soon as Catherine saw the photograph, she recognised the face. Sure, he was older now – weren't they all. But the eyes were the same; those cold, cobalt blue eyes.

Stephanie had been beautiful and she had had a lot of admirers as a result; it was impossible to remember them all. Most of them had faded from memory a long time ago.

But Catherine remembered him now.

She remembered the silent, brooding young man sitting in the front row, within touching distance.

She remembered the way he would stand eerily close when the girls were at the bar, breathing down their neck.

And she remembered the way he used to stare at Stephanie like she was already his.

She didn't specifically recall seeing him the night Stephanie died; but then why would she? The bar was filled with quiet, creepy guys every night. There was nothing in particular about this guy which set him apart from all the other.

Although, as it turns out, he wasn't just one of the many quiet, creepy guys who had been loitering in the bar watching the girls that he knew he could never have.

He was just biding his time, waiting until he got Stephanie alone.

And because Catherine had gone to meet Eddie that night, instead of being with her, he had finally got it.

That was something that she was going to have to live with for the rest of her life.

She wanted to say that it felt good, walking out of the interrogation room, knowing that he would leave in handcuffs. She wanted to say that it had helped to take some of the sting off her guilt, at least for a little while.

She wanted to say that she felt proud to have finally gotten justice for the woman she had once loved.

But she only felt numb.

As she stalked down the corridor of the police station towards the parking lot, where she would sit in her car and cry for an hour before driving home, she realised that she hadn't felt a thing since she left the lab.

Since that moment when all of the pieces had fallen into place.

Since the moment that Sara had handed her the file, a coy little smile dancing on her lips.

" _She was your friend."_ Sara had said. _"You should do this for her."_

x X x

"Alright," Lily sighed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Catherine sulked, slinking down in her seat with a cup of coffee clasped between her hands.

"Come on, Catherine." She persevered, joining her at the kitchen table. "I'm your mother; I know when something is bothering you. Talk to me."

Catherine flicked her gaze up, searching her mother's face for a long moment, before letting it slide off to the side.

"I can't talk to you about this."

"Honey, you can talk to me about anything." Lily corrected in a wounded voice, reaching across the table towards her daughter. "Is it about Stephanie?"

Cath exhaled deeply.

"In a way." She agreed cryptically.

"I know that she was a good friend." Lily offered sympathetically. "But you've got him now. He's going to prison for a very long time and you can finally let her go."

Catherine laughed softly, shaking her head.

"Let her go." She echoed sadly. As if it were that easy.

A hurt look flashed across Lily's face. Confused, but realising that her words were providing little comfort, she reached out and gripped her daughter's hand, prising it away from the edge of the coffee mug and caressing it tenderly, silently coaxing her to open up.

Catherine watched her gentle movements warily, a thousand different excuses for her bad mood creeping onto her tongue and dying before she ever voiced them.

"You want to know what's wrong with me?" She asked eventually. "I'm gay."

Lily straightened up, her mouth falling open.

"You ... you're what?" She choked out with a startled laugh.

Catherine met her eye and, at the sight of the tears trekking silently down her cheeks, the older woman quickly sobered up.

"I'm gay."

A whole minute passed where neither moved, barely breathed. A chasm seemed to open up between them, as if neither were quite sure what the next move should be.

"Catherine ..." Lily licked her lips, carefully considering her words. "Is this some new fad you're trying to follow?"

"Oh, God." Cath pushed her chair back in dramatic fashion and stood up, walking towards the back door.

"I'm just asking," Lily followed her. "I see the news and it seems that this is the new 'in-thing', so..."

"No, mom." She whirled to face her again, her hands raised defensively. "This is not a fad and it's not new. This is who I am; it's who I've always been."

Her earnest pleading drew more tears and she wiped pitifully at her eyes, with little effect.

"But, what about Eddie? And ..."

"Always, mom." Catherine cut her off before she could start listing her past exploits. "I never wanted to deal with it, so I pushed it away. It was just easier that way."

"I don't believe you." Lily said sceptically, searching her face for any sign of deceit but finding only pain. "I would have known."

"Nancy knew." Catherine offered with a small shrug, opening the door and wandering out into the yard. Lily watched her amble over to a plant and pretend to examine it, debating whether or not to follow her.

She knew that Catherine had been distracted of late, but this was certainly not what she had been expecting. And to learn that her other child had apparently known about it and neglected to mention it? That stung.

But that was a conversation for her and Nancy to have later. Right now, she had more pressing matters to deal with.

Eventually, she stepped outside into the sun and crept up to her daughter's side.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asked in a voice which sounded more offended than she intended.

"How could I?" Catherine asked. "You were never around. I don't know if you remember this, but we weren't exactly the kind of family who sat around the dinner table together every night."

"You told your sister."

"No, I didn't." She amended. "Nancy figured it out on her own."

That seemed to bother Lily even more and she shook her head to get rid of the thoughts that had begun to seep into her mind. Had she really been that oblivious to her children when they were growing up?

Catherine was right, they didn't spend a lot of time together a family, mainly due to her work hours. But how could she have missed something this big?

To be honest, that was a question that she wasn't prepared to investigation further just yet.

"So, why now?" She asked instead.

Catherine laughed sadly, finally dropping the leaf that she had been absently caressing.

"Because I can't do it anymore." She shrugged helplessly, beginning to break down. "Someone recently told me that they had were struggling with their own sexuality and I told them that they needed to be honest with themselves – that they owed themselves that much. But what kind of hypocrite does that make me? Because I've been lying to myself for my whole adult life. And I can't do it anymore, it's too hard."

Somewhere during her diatribe, the barriers had broken and the tears were flowing unstemmed now, her breath coming in short bursts. Slowly, she turned to lean her back against the garden wall and slid down to the ground, her body wracked with sobs.

Lily hadn't seen her daughter like this in a very long time – she hadn't even broken down like this when she caught Eddie in bed with another woman.

Come to think of it, the last time she had seen Catherine break down in such spectacular fashion, it had been when Stephanie died. She wasn't just upset, she was inconsolable.

Lily hadn't known what to do for the best back then, so she had left it to Eddie to help Catherine. But he wasn't around anymore, and he probably wouldn't be much use now even if he was here.

Crouching down beside her, Lily wrapped her into a hug, burying a kiss into her hair.

"I can understand why you felt like you needed to hide this from the world when you were younger." She mumbled against Catherine's temple. "I can even understand why you might have tried to lie to yourself about it. But you never, ever needed to lie to me about it."

Catherine's only response was another hiccupped cry, smothered by her mom's shoulder. Lily held her tighter, feeling herself suddenly warped back fifteen years; back to the last time she had held her baby like this.

"You don't ever need to hide who you are from me."


	35. Chapter 35

If Catherine thought that confessing to her mother was hard, it was nothing compared to getting up the courage to knock on the door that she had been staring at for ten minutes.

To her relief, when it swung open, the occupant didn't look upset to see her. Bemused, perhaps, but not upset.

"Hi." Sara greeted dumbly.

"Hey," Catherine cleared her throat, twisting her hands. "I'm sorry; I should have called first..."

"No, it's okay." Sara stepped aside to let her enter.

As Cath crept into the apartment, she was hit by a warm, pleasant smell. Casting her eyes towards the small kitchenette, she spotted the source in the form of a cake, fresh out of the oven and cooling on the side. Beside it sat a bowl of frosting that Sara had been mixing before she answered the door.

"You've been baking." She noted with more than a hint of surprise.

"Yeah." Sara agreed, sliding past her to make some fresh coffee.

Taking it as an invite to make herself comfortable, Catherine ambled over to the bench and hopped up onto a stool.

"Funny, you never struck me as a baker." She commented.

Sara offered a small shrug as she poured out two mugs.

"It's an old habit, keeps my hands busy when I have stuff on my mind." She explained. "My grandmother taught me – she was a firm believer that idle hands are the devil's workshop."

Catherine laughed softly, accepting her drink. Sara moved around the bench to join her on the stools. As she sat down, she dragged her bowl of frosting over and continued to stir it lackadaisically.

As Catherine sipped her coffee, contemplating her reason for coming here, she studied Sara over the rim of her mug. The brunette did seem somewhat distracted, but not necessarily sad. Perhaps her grandmother's trick really did work.

"You've never mentioned your grandmother before." She said at last. .

"Haven't I?" Sara asked half-heartedly.

For a minute, Catherine thought that that was as much as she was going to get, when Sara began speaking again.

"She loved to cook. And bake. Basically anything in the kitchen." She explained. "She got custody of me when I was 15, so I lived with her for a couple of years before I went to college."

"You two must have been pretty close." Cath smiled. There was an affectionate tone to Sara's voice that she had never heard before.

"I guess." The younger woman agreed. "Although at the time I probably drove her up the wall."

The flippant comment drew a laugh from her companion and Sara cracked a smile at the reaction.

"Bit of a hell-raiser were we?" Catherine asked playfully. Sara pursed her lips and nodded.

"Maybe. Although I'm sure you weren't much better." She half-joked. "I'm sure you gave your mother her fair share of sleepless nights when you were a teenager."

Catherine's expression faltered and her attempts to cover it failed miserably. Sara cocked her head to the side, finally scrutinising her unexpected visitor.

"Cat," she said softly, putting down her bowl. "Why are you really here?"

x X x

Nancy knew that there was something on her mother's mind – Lily never stopped by unannounced unless there was something she needed to talk about.

But it had been a long shift at the hospital and she couldn't be bothered to drag it out of her. So, she poured out two drinks and ambled into the garden, waiting for her mom to open up in her own time.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The older woman finally asked, following her out onto the deck.

"Tell you what?" She asked lazily.

"That your sister's a lesbian."

The blunt statement caused Nancy to stall, her coffee mug half-way to her lips, and cast her eyes slowly upwards.

"You know?" She asked cautiously.

"Yes, I know." Lily sank onto the chair beside her.

"How ... how did you find out?" Nancy shuffled further upright, suddenly a lot more alert.

"She told me."

"She ... Catherine told you?" Nancy clarified. "In those exact words?"

"Yes." Lily agreed calmly. "How long have you known?"

"Well, I knew about Stephanie ..." Nancy frowned. "I didn't ..."

"Stephanie?" Lily's mouth fell open, interrupting her mid-thought. "Catherine and Stephanie were..."

"Yeah." Nancy licked her lips slowly, fixing her mother with a challenging look. "What exactly _did_ she tell you?"

"She said that she was gay, that she always had been, but that she'd tried to hide it. And that you knew."

The last comment was added with a distinct tone of disapproval, causing Nancy to drop her head.

"Look, it was right after Stephanie died. Surely you remember what she did?"

"Of course I remember." Lily exhaled. "It was one of the worst days of my life."

"Well, then you remember what kind of state she was in." Nancy continued earnestly. "I was with her in the hospital and she was distraught, she was talking about Stephanie and her and who she really was. She was a mess; all I could do was try to calm her down."

"Did you talk to her about it, once she was out of hospital?"

"I never got chance – the next thing I knew she was engaged to Eddie. Whenever I mentioned Stephanie again, she shut me down."

Lily hummed, sitting back in her chair to think about this.

"Is it because of Stephanie's case being solved?" She asked eventually. "Is that why this has all come out now?"

"I wish." Nancy laughed dryly, choosing to ignore her mother's accidental pun. "She's been thinking about this for a while."

"Why?" Lily pressed. "After all these years, why now?"

Nancy cast her eyes towards the sky and shook her head sadly.

"Sara Sidle."

"Sara?" Lily echoed, drawing to memory the image of Catherine's young brunette colleague. "Is this about her counselling file that Catherine took?"

"It started there." Nancy agreed. "Although I get the impression that she's had these feelings for a while."

"Feelings for Sara?" Lily clarified. "But the girl must be ten years younger than Catherine."

Despite the serious nature of the conversation, the flippant comment caused Nancy to emit a bright laugh.

"If you're going to bring this up with her, I wouldn't start with that." She suggested cheekily.

Lily rolled her eyes, not finding it remotely amusing.

"So, is she going to act on them, these _feelings_?"

"Not if my advice means anything." Nancy exhaled sarcastically. "Which means she's probably at Sara's apartment right now."

x X x

"You've never told her any of this before?"

"Not a word." Cath inhaled sharply. They had moved to the couch, where she was now sunk into the cushions, swirling the remnants of her coffee around the bottom of her mug.

"Well, it sounds like she took it pretty well."

"Yeah, maybe." She laughed dryly. "I think she was just too shocked to do anything else."

"Your mom's pretty savvy." Sara shrugged. "I'm sure this won't be that big of a deal for her."

"I don't know." Cath mused. "It's really not something we've ever talked about before. I honestly have no idea what her feelings on the matter are."

Having run out of useful platitudes, Sara fell quiet and Catherine took the time to cast her eyes over her. She was absently doodling a pattern in the cake crumbs left on her empty plate, a pensive look on her face.

Taking the plate from her, Catherine placed it on the coffee table with her own, forcing Sara to meet her gaze.

"Spend Thanksgiving with us."

"What?" Sara blinked, taken aback.

"I asked you in the lab, right before you broke Stephanie's case, but you never answered." Cath explained nervously. "So, I'm asking again. I want you to spend Thanksgiving with Lindsey and me."

"Cat..."

Before she could finish her sentence, Catherine gripped her hands and lunged forward, pressing brief kiss to her lips.

As they parted, Sara stared at her for a whole minute with a completely unreadable expression, causing Catherine's heart rate to increase with every passing second.

Finally, as her tongue darted out to wet her lips, Sara found her voice.

"What time on Thanksgiving?"


	36. Chapter 36

In the few seconds between ringing the bell and the door swinging open, Sara had already lost count of the number of reasons that this was a terrible idea.

Yet when she found herself staring at Catherine's bright blue eyes and nervous smile, she couldn't help but match the expression.

"Hey." She greeted anxiously.

"Hi." Catherine breathed, reaching out a hand to tug her into her house.

Sara instinctively looked around in search of other guests and was surprised to find the living room empty.

"Who else is coming?" She asked, shrugging out of her jacket when she felt Catherine's hands on her shoulders, carefully switching her homemade pie from one hand to the other.

"No one." Cath frowned, accepting the dessert offering. "Why, who else were you expecting?"

"I don't know," Sara shrugged. "I assumed you'd be spending the day with your mom, or your sister, or both?"

"Nancy and her husband and son are doing their own thing." Cath explained, taking Sara's hand and tugging her into the kitchen, where she placed the pie on the side for later. "And mom and I ... we're not exactly on great terms at the moment, so she decided to join them instead. It'll just be us and Lindsey – I hope that's okay?"

She suddenly felt a stomach-full of butterflies flutter into action at the thought that Sara might be put off by the idea of a cosy family dinner. However, to her relief, Sara's tense muscles visibly relaxed at this news.

"That's fine." The brunette exhaled, gesturing to the mess cluttering up the kitchen. "How can I help?"

"You can't." Cath grinned, handing her a glass of freshly-poured wine and nudging her back towards the lounge. "You can go and sit down and make yourself comfortable – I'll be back in a minute."

As Sara disappeared, Catherine released the breath she hadn't realised she was holding.

She had been telling herself all morning that there was no need to be nervous, that it was just Sara. They had shared countless meals together over the years and she had even found a meat-free Thanksgiving alternative for the vegetarian's main course.

But as soon as she had answered that door and set eyes on her colleague, all those reassurances had gone out of the window. She had no idea what she was doing, why she was doing it or how it was going to turn out.

Today could be the start of something very interesting, or it could be an unmitigated disaster. And even if it worked out personally, she could still be committing professional suicide.

After checking on the food and taking another deep, calming breath, she smoothed out her clothes and wandered back into the living room, where she was not particularly surprised to find Sara perusing her bookshelf.

"You like the classics." The brunette noted upon hearing her enter. Cath smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"Me too." Sara murmured absently, going back to her examination. "Who's your favourite?"

Before she could answer, they were interrupted with the sound of little footsteps and Lindsey clattered into the room.

"Is dinner nearly ready?" She asked without introduction.

"Manners, Lindsey." Catherine chastised, causing the child to purse her lips and nod in understanding.

"Hi Sara." She greeted dutifully. Cath hummed with approval.

"Why don't you go wash up before we eat."

Rolling her eyes, the child ambled back off down the hall to wash her hands, leaving Sara and Catherine to share an awkward smile. Eventually, Catherine cleared her throat and gestured towards the table.

"Shall we?"

x X x

With Lindsey suitably neutralised in a food coma on the couch, Catherine and Sara remained at the table with the remnants of their wine, satellited by stacks of almost-empty plates.

"So, are you going to tell me what happened?" Sara asked at last, swirling the glass idly in one hand.

"Happened with what?" Cath frowned softly.

"With your mom." Sara half-smiled. "Last I knew, you'd just come out to her and she was supportive, if a little confused by it all. Now all of a sudden you're not speaking?"

"Oh, that." She laughed nervously. "Yeah, she is ... well, she was being supportive."

"So, what changed?"

"You."

The answer slipped out before Catherine could recall it and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment.

"I'm sorry, that wasn't meant to come out like that."

Sara chuckled, dropping her gaze bashfully.

"Okay, so how was it supposed to come out?" She asked, not content to let Catherine completely off the hook with this line of questioning just yet.

Cath cast a glance over her shoulder to check that Lindsey wasn't listening, but the child appeared to have dozed off.

"Well, it seems my charming little sister has been running her mouth off." She explained, lowering her voice just in case. "She told mom about my feelings for ... for you."

Sara smiled softly at her uncharacteristic stuttering, suddenly mirroring the blonde's blush.

"And she doesn't approve." She guessed with an understanding nod.

"Oh, it's not you." Cath pointed out hurriedly, placing a hand on Sara's arm. "She doesn't approve of me getting involved with a colleague who is so much younger than me – _her_ words, not mine!"

Sara snickered at the disgruntled huff that accompanied that particular statement.

"I see." She pursed her lips, her expression sobering somewhat. "And ... are we 'involved'?"

Catherine slowly, tentatively, met her gaze, taking a few seconds to study her face. Unfortunately, Sara was giving nothing away with her expression beyond mild curiosity.

"Well, you're here today." She noted optimistically. "That's a good start."

"Yeah, I am." Sara hummed, nodding contemplatively. "You know, I nearly didn't come. I almost changed my mind so many times."

Catherine didn't appear remotely offended by this shy revelation. Instead, she sat back and apprised her inquisitively.

"So, why did you come?" She asked, an unusual vulnerability seeping into her voice.

"I don't know." Sara shook her head helplessly. "I guess I was ... flattered?" She grasped, not quite finding the word she was looking for.

Cath cocked her head to the side in silent question, encouraging her to continue when she trailed off in favour of scowling to herself at her current ineloquence.

With a sigh, Sara put her wine glass down and sat forward in her seat, folding her hands on the table.

"Nobody's ever fought for me the way you have." She explained, a mix of sadness and gratitude taking over her voice. "You broke all the rules for me; you risked your job for me! When I left your house upset that night, you kept phoning and when I didn't answer you came to my flat. Even when everyone else found out what had happened and held it against you, you didn't back down. You're ... persistent. Most people would have given up on me by now."

It wasn't the answer she had been expecting, but it made Catherine smile nonetheless. She reached out to brush Sara's hair aside affectionately, catching her eye in the process.

"Honey, I could never give up on you." She offered sweetly.

"I still don't like the way you went about it all." Sara pointed out, brandishing a hand in mock threat.

"I know." Cath assured her, unfazed. "And I promise; I won't ever do anything like that again."

Sara nodded to indicate that she believed her, letting her eyes fall back down towards the table.

"In a way, I'm kind of glad that you found out the way you did. It saved me having to figure out how to tell you. And I guess things have worked out okay in the end..."

At her shy smile, Catherine reached across the table and interlocked their fingers together.

"Mom?"

The sleepy voice from behind them startled both women into jerking their hands back and Catherine turned towards the noise wearing a well-rehearsed mask of innocence.

"Yes honey?"

Lindsey emerged, stretching, into their line of sight and eyed the two of them suspiciously for a moment, before brushing off whatever distrustful question was forming in her youthful mind and replacing it with a far more pressing request.

"Is there any pie left?"


End file.
